


Eye of Your Storm

by Only_1_Truth



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Amnesia, Bullying, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, James is the resident tough kid, Kid Fic, M/M, Mentions of past abuse, Orphans, Pre-Relationship, Q is a fluffy-headed trouble-magnet, Sharing a Bed, Threats, Young James, Young Q, because Q is fluffy and James is angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2020-09-06 02:49:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 67,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20284153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Only_1_Truth/pseuds/Only_1_Truth
Summary: “Some people want to be the apple of your eye, the song in your heart, the spring in your step… but I just want to be the eye of your storm.”- James Bond, to QWhen an amnesiac kid is brought to St. Joseph's Home for orphans, James Bond doesn't bat an eye.  Orphans come and go, and he's been around long enough to know that he needs to look out for himself until he's old enough to leave.  But this new orphan is small, and naive, and his guilelessness attracts trouble.  But when this kid latches onto Bond with a loyalty that James has never had before, well... staying aloof might not be as easy as James had thought.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AudreyInTheUniverse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AudreyInTheUniverse/gifts).

> I finally opened up a few 'spell slots' (completed a few fics, lol), so now I'm free to start posting more things! And hopefully update and finish 'Sciamachy', too... 
> 
> A million thanks to the ever-patient AudreyInTheUniverse - who sent me a fic-request too good to resist (and who was then enough of a saint to keep checking in with me, when it seemed that the story had gone cold). I hope that this fic ends up being worthy of the idea that started it <3

The morning started with clouds and ended in rain, the grey sheets of it falling after casting a pall across the day.

In Livingston, West Lothian, a blue-eyed boy sat in the Saint Joseph’s Home and stared forward with practiced apathy as he was lectured by the Home’s headmistress. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t heard before: “James - you have to stop being so irresponsible! James - you won’t be living within our walls forever, and you’ve got to get ready for the real world! James - where do you keep getting these bruises? James - stop fighting!” Other words snagged the barest edges of his attention as they floated past, words repeated so often that they’d nearly lost all meaning in his ears: difficult, disrespectful, inattentive, _troublemaker_. Since James Bond had been orphaned at age eleven and been passed through more foster homes than he cared to count in the five years since then, he figured that he was entitled to every one of those words and then some. Just because he was considered ‘in transition’ and being taught how to ‘survive in the adult world’ didn’t mean he was going to suddenly shed his present skin and become something pretty and new. 

Glancing over at the window, James watched the thick-bellied clouds as they marched above the rolling hills, and wished they’d just fucking rain already. Then he could distract himself with the sound of it. 

In London, another day started out grey, and then went black. A younger boy, fresh from a family fight and determined to run away (at least temporarily) to a relative who properly appreciated him, traipsed boldly to the train station only to get waylaid upon arrival. Boys with posh coats attracted all kinds of bad attention, and muggers could be unscrupulous in what prey they chose. It took only seconds for things to go terribly wrong. Small frame limp and as vulnerable as the bones of a little bird, that fourteen-year-old boy was tossed aboard an empty train-car. Blood plastered dark hair against the side of his face, making his wild nest of curls lopsided, but even as his muggers ran off with his coat and all the meager belongings in his pockets, that boy stilled _breathed_. 

Back in Scotland, the blue-eyed boy endured the rest of his lecture, ending in strict instructions to make it to his job on time come Monday - and not to get any more bruises between now (Friday) and then. James wanted to ask her if she _knew_ how ruthless the kids at the Home could get, but he’d already had liberal experience with adults not listening to him, so ultimately his eyes slid back to the window with its portent of rain. He’d failed today at being a grocer, but in the time he’d skivved off on his ‘work training,’ he’d made at least a week’s worth of cash at _The Black Eagle_, hustling people at poker. Everyone underestimated him pretty quickly because of his young age, although if they tried to use their fists to dispute their losses, he was quick to show them that youth didn’t exactly mean ineptitude - and James was more than capable of weathering a few blows to defend his winnings for the day. 

Instead of thinking about how much madder Mrs. Mitchell would be if she realized that he’d been augmenting his income at pubs, or that he’d found an underground club amoral enough to let a sixteen-year-old brat fight in it, James brushed a hand back through his short blond hair and glanced out the window again. He almost liked getting lectures in this office, because instead of looking off towards the suburbs of Livingston, it looked out over the land mankind hadn’t reached yet. 

It made him think of home. 

Just before James' mind slipped from pleasant memories into the ones that stung and burned, the clouds opened up, and thunder rolled like a celestial grumble.

Over another boy, those same clouds opened up - and the train-car’s doors were opened as well. A flurry of shocked and confusion followed, as the hurt boy was bundled up, freezing cold and barely alive, far from his London home and now raggedly breathing in the wet Scottish air. Amidst much bewilderment and worry, he was rushed to the nearest hospital, the rain pouring down all the while and washing the blood out of his hair. 

The rain seemed to wash away everything temporarily: James' frustration and discontent with his life, his general disregard for human attachments that had been growing like a cancer ever since he’d watched his parents and groundskeeper killed in front of him. For a while, he was able to just drown himself in the pounding of the rain and the growl of the thunder as he was released back to the room he shared with at least a dozen other orphaned boys.

But while all of those things would come back to James, recreating the model of a recalcitrant adolescent well on his way to becoming one of life’s menaces, the rain’s metaphorical cleansing had a more lasting effect in another sector.

Days after the rain had passed, a boy with cracked glasses and a cracked skull would wake up in the hospital with absolutely no memory of what had happened to him or where he was… much less _who _he was.

~^~

St. Joseph’s Home was bustling, the hall used for breakfast filling up fast with ravenous children all descending on their first allotted meal of the day like ravenous wolves - they were young like pups but all the smart ones had learned to scrap and bite already like adults. Necessity and hunger were good teachers. James had technically learned most of the tricks before coming here, but even he had to admit that it was hard to keep hold of your food with so many other boys and girls jostling for it. Even as he filled up his plate, he slipped some of his food into his pockets, aware of the dangers of keeping all of his valuables in one place. If someone took his plate, he’d still have food left.

It was likely a needless precaution. James was one of the older boys, and even if he wasn’t - he’d earned a reputation as one of the ones you didn’t fuck with. 

“Children!” Mrs. Mitchell’s voice managed to cut above the general chatter of boisterous, rowdy adolescents. James turned half an ear to her, keeping his attention evenly distributed, and giving one gimlet look to the girl following after him in line - at the moment of distraction, she’d started eyeing one of his scones, but now kept her eyes to herself as she realized that James wasn’t an easy target. Assured that he’d get to eat his breakfast today (all of it), James shifted just a fraction more of his jaded attention to Mrs. Mitchell, whom he could just see at the front of the room, hands on something small in front of her. “Children, we’ve got someone new to welcome into our fold! I’d like to introduce you to-” There was a brief moment of confused quiet, and James leaned around a clutch of taller kids to to get a better look, curiosity getting the better of him. James caught sight of a bespectacled boy perhaps thirteen or fourteen years old with the most ridiculous dark hair that James had ever seen. He was a small kid, just skin and bones beneath overlarge clothing - borrowed, if James was any judge, and he was _quite_ a good judge. 

“-Introduce you to Quincy!” Mrs. Mitchell finished a bit belatedly. James instantly noted the lack of last name; that meant this kid was more than an orphan like the rest of them, but among the unlucky beggars who didn’t even have a family name to call their own. Not that a name made any real difference at St. Joseph’s, but it did made James feels just the tiniest bit sorry for the kid. 

Especially since he had ‘fresh meat’ written all over him, and it only got worse when the bespectacled twig of a boy raised a hand, smiled, and said in a friendly voice, “Hello.”

James wondered if he’d ever been that naive.

~^~

The boys and girls of St. Joseph’s Home left no-last-name-Quincy alone for about four days - which was how long it took for his shiny newness to wear off and the adults to stop mothering and watching him so closely. It was a familiar pattern. Even the most adorable children eventually just become one of many, and St. Joseph’s had a high kid-to-keeper ratio - too high for the adults to watch them all. Usually it only took two days, tops, before everything returned to normal and the newcomers were subsumed into the nondescript whole for inevitable hazing, but Quincy had a few things going for him that kept him interesting. He was apparently an amnesiac, transferred directly from a hospital because no one knew anything about him and no one had come forward to label him as missing. He’d been dropped off at the hospital anonymously, like a baby on a doorstep. A damaged one with no pedigree in sight.

James didn’t really take notice of him until Saturday rolled around and the adults lost the interest to watch Quincy like a hawk, and someone promptly stole all his breakfast. 

You didn’t go through the food-line twice at St. Joseph’s - greed and overindulgence weren’t tolerated, and generally, children who came back whining for second-helpings were accused of both and shooed off with a wooden ladle. James could hear Quincy shouting for someone to “Hey, give that back!” but doubted that any of the adults heard, because the bullies at the Home were smart enough to do their hunting where they wouldn’t get caught. Already on his way to one of the windows where he liked to perch and eat with his flanks defended, James sighed, flexed his free hand where his knuckles still ached from his last scrap, and erased the incident from his mind. Sympathy never got him anywhere. 

It’s not like anyone had ever had any to spare for _him_.

Sitting on the window ledge with his plate balanced on his knees, James went through his meal quickly. Getting one’s food stolen was a very real threat at St. Joseph’s, but if you could keep hold of it, the portions were decent - although a growing boy like James (with a fast metabolism and a habit of burning off energy like the sun) pushed the limits a bit. It was tempting to steal food himself, but the one and only time he’d done it, the little girl he’d snatched a sandwich from had looked so goddamned heartbroken that he’d given it back with ill grace and the defeated knowledge that he’d never do it again. James was amoral enough to beat a person into submission with little or no provocation, but apparently he couldn’t bully people out of their meals if they’d never done anything to hurt him. It was a bit of a frustrating conundrum, really. 

James tensed, his peripheral vision catching movement and triggering him to swivel his head even as one of his hands gripped his plate and the other curled into a practiced fist. He’d had ‘food guarding’ down to a science even before he’d arrived at the Home, and it had made him very, very hard to take advantage of when he’d first arrived. 

Now, however, instead of finding a threat when he looked over his shoulder, he saw none other than Quincy approaching. The kid was surprisingly soft-footed, and already close enough that James' quick eyes could see a nasty, healing cut that stretched from his hairline down over his right temple. It was visible where doctors had no doubt shaved back some of his hair, which looked ridiculous - but, then again,_ all_ of Quincy’s hair was pretty ridiculous. “Hello,” the smaller boy said, sounding less sure of himself than he had that first day. 

James narrowed his eyes. It was reflex to slash his gaze from the crown of Quincy’s fluffy little head to his too-clean, too-new trainers, and dismiss him as a non-threat. Even if Quincy had been armed with a kitchen-knife, James doubted that he would have come across as all that dangerous. “What do you want, Quincy?” he demanded gruffly.

Eyes that looked gold when the sun struck them but green when he looked down and scuffed his toes shyly met Bond’s ice-blue gaze briefly. However, with more guts than most kids at the Home showed towards the resident scrapper, Quincy replied with clear British diction that only about half of the kids at the Home had, “My name isn’t Quincy.”

Arching one eyebrow, James reacted to Q’s posh accent by thickening up his brogue, “Well, isn’t that jus’ grand for ye.” 

Quincy’s eyes snapped up, hearing the change in vocalizations instantly. His dark brows drew together over his big hazel eyes in clear bewilderment, and for a second, James almost chuckled. The fluffy-headed boy quickly recovered, however. “I told them to call me ‘Q,’ but they didn’t listen.”

“Yer name is seriously Q?” Bond asked back, his accent slipping back to something more British mid-sentence, to the other boy’s increasing consternation. 

This time the bespectacled little mite frowned deeply, an irked look all over his fine features, and he gave up on deciphering Bond’s method of speech in favor of muttering back, “I’m not sure.”

_‘Amnesia, right. He does’nae remember a bloody thing_,’ James recalled, and rolled his eyes before turning back to his plate. He froze again when Quincy… Q… responded by instantly skipping forward a few more steps like the player in a game of ‘Red Light, Green Light.’ Suspicious and wary, James watched him askance, and only resisted the urge to growl because he was above making animal noises as boys half his size. 

“I… er… couldn’t quite miss that you stuffed a roll in your pocket. You know, while in the lunch-line,” Quincy went on doggedly. Just as James was about to pretend he didn’t know what the hell Quincy was talking about (something that he could keep doing even while eating said roll hidden in his pocket), the younger boy’s eyes suddenly seemed to get bigger and more pleading, and James hadn’t seen something look so hopeful and helpless since he’d found a hungry kitten in the gutter on his way home from skinning people at cards. “Please,” Quincy said, a word that wasn’t heard much around St. Joseph’s unless prompted by an adult. His hazel eyes darted behind him, to where other orphans were starting to watch the exchange from the rows upon rows of tables, curious as to how this would go. “They took my lunch, and the servers don’t seem to believe me, and they won’t give me more, and I don’t want to take anyone else’s food - obviously - but I saw you take extra, and… well…” His lips pursed and his shoulders hunched up for a second, bony knobs beneath an oversized blue shirt. “I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask?” he finished uncertainly as he looked back to where James was perched. 

A goodly number of other kids were watching now. Not a lot of people messed with James, and even the adults left him largely alone, knowing that he had ‘trouble’ burnt into his bones. You didn’t go through as many foster homes as James did without something seriously wrong with you, after all - or so the opinions went. James' reputation as a scrapper was widespread, too, and even now he knew that he had a bruise fading on his jaw and healing knuckles making his right hand twinge. He’d built up a general aura of dangerousness, and no one had penetrated it in quite a long while, but here was Quincy… Q… coming up to him like that kitten in the street had, too stupid to know any better and too trusting to imagine that James could do a lot of harm to him over one simple roll. 

As the seconds stretched without James answering or even really moving, Quincy shuffled closer, starting to smile, hopeful and tentatively happy. When he got close enough to be within arm’s reach, James' eyes narrowed a tick and people held their breath. A few people got their own food snatched while they were busy staring. 

In the end, James didn’t know why he did it. He definitely didn’t make a habit of being nice, and it was no skin off his nose if this poor sap went hungry. But Quincy was skinny enough that he was in danger of blowing away at the first puff of wind, and it wasn’t like he was _threatening_ James for the food. If the kid had tried to bluster and get pushy, Bond’s response would have been easy: if someone pushed, he pushed back _harder_, without question. 

But Q had said _please_, and there wasn’t a threatening bone in his body that James could see. 

“Here.” The blond-haired boy produced the bit of bread like a magic-trick, and felt a flutter of rare amusement as Q’s eyes snapped to it like magnets to metal. Bond tossed it to him and watched the small boy fumble to catch it, even as a few gasps were actually heard from the rest of the dining room. James ignored them, instead turning back to the remains of his plate and making clear, “Don’t expect any other favors, Quincy.” He even slipped his British accent on as strongly as he could, lending age and credibility to his voice like a body slipping on a finely cut suit. 

“Oh no, I won’t!” Quincy assured hurriedly. He’d almost dropped the roll, but got it in both hands before looking up and daring to pipe up, “But my name’s Q.”

“Fine. Q. Whatever you bloody want it to be,” James dismissed and went back to eating. He made clear by his body-language that the other boy didn’t exist anymore, and neither did anyone else - he even ate slowly, like he didn’t have a fear in the world. 

~^~

Starting at supper, a few brave idiots decided to make James give up more than a simple lump of bread, but he made it indelibly clear that he only gave up food when he chose to. He blooded two noses and ended up in ‘detention,’ which basically meant he ended up in a small, lightless room for the rest of the day and on through the night. He also didn’t get to finish supper, but he hated the closed in dark worse, like some sort of mocking beast wrapped all around him and sinking into his skin. It wasn’t that he feared the dark so much as he hated having all of his freedom severed with one fell swoop, the isolation and confinement smothering him. None of the orphans at St. Joseph’s Home had much freedom to begin with, but James valued what little he had like a dragon hoarded gold, and he paced all night long until he was released in the morning with a scolding he refused to listen to. 

The brat who tried to bully him at breakfast got a far more subtle application of James' temper: a hand wrapped steel-tight around his covetous arm and a smile like a mouthful of razors as James detailed just how he’d break every joint in the kid’s hand if he didn’t back off. Unsurprisingly, everyone soon got the message that Bond’s softness towards the amnesiac Q was a one-time event. For his part, Quincy was smart enough not to have even approached James again, although he was in the hallway with one of the adults when James was let out of detention. Their eyes had met briefly, and James had done his best to make clear that they weren’t friends and this wasn’t an occasion to pity him, even as he felt the exhaustion of a frenzied, sleepless night like heavy shadows beneath his eyes. 

Q definitely hadn’t looked at him with pity, but he hadn’t retreated from Bond’s frostbite-cold look as expected either. There was definitely something wrong with that kid - maybe that blow to the head had knocked loose more than just his memory.

On James' first night back from detention, he was looking forward to sleeping in his own bed again, a bittersweet sort of longing, because the sleeping arrangements at St. Joseph’s were hardly enviable. The boys and girls were split into two huge dormitory halls, and otherwise allowed basically no privacy besides the nominal anonymity that one could find if they were lucky enough to have a top bunk. There was an almost nightly jockeying for positions, quiet fights breaking out over who slept where, which were quelled but poorly by the attending staff - and usually started up again as soon as the lights were out and no adults were watching. James was high enough up in the general hierarchy that he managed to get his usual bunk with the minimum amount of posturing, mostly because the particular bed he favored was stuffed into the corner and right beneath one of the vents. The real kings of St. Joseph’s had decided ages ago that it wasn’t worth fighting over unless you also wanted to fight for more blankets, but James had always been pretty hot-blooded. He’d slept outside before, in far worse conditions, so taking the undesirable bunk was a bargain, especially because it was in the corner of the room so he had walls at his back on two sides. 

Listening to the fading rustles and bickering of boys not happy with their sleeping arrangements, James settled down under the covers and let himself slip into a shallow sleep. Even with the lights now off and the adults gone, the place was neither as dark nor as confining as the detention room, and it settled something restless and uneasy in the blue-eyed boy’s core.

Until he heard a familiar voice squeaking in alarm, but one bunk-over. _Fucking hell_. Why did Q always have to get in trouble within hearing range?

“Leave me alone!” Q’s voice was quiet, but tight with fear that rose it a few pitches. James didn’t have to be a genius to guess that Q had already been told that screaming would earn him a swift beating before anyone who cared heard him. Well, James had heard him… but James was trying to sleep, damn it, and this was hardly the first time a newbie had gotten bullied. Bond rolled over, determined to keep out of it this time. 

“Who’s going to make me, four-eyes?” another boy, a known bully just a few years younger than James, retorted. James found himself staring at the wall, even though he’d intended to close his eyes and doze off again. “Now get out of my bed before I kick you out of it.”

“But you were just sleeping over there,” Q said, sounding helpless - and tired, and confused. “And you said that about the last bed I was in. That doesn’t make any logical-” 

There was the sharp noise of a slap and Q let out a strangled yelp, the combination of noise making James' back tense up. Another bully was talking, one that James recognized as a fucker that he’d tangled with on multiple occasions - because the red-haired kid apparently had short-term memory problems that rivaled Q’s amnesia when it came to recalling lessons learned, “Who the fuck cares about logic around here? Now do as the man says, and beat it!”

Rolling his eyes at the severely fallacious use of the word ‘man,’ James tried to stopper his ears to the sound of Q capitulating. Really, the boy was softer than Eiderdown, and that was not what one needed in St. Joseph’s at all. Immediately, Bond could have told Q that giving in to these bullies wouldn’t help any, because if they were already chasing you from bed to bed, then all they really cared about was the hunt anyway. But Q tried to be nice, and Bond heard him retreating until he bumped into the bed below James' - and woke up its occupant, who took to walking like a bear dragged out of hibernation. Soon, Q was being set upon by three boys who all smelled blood in the water, and James couldn’t take it anymore. 

He rolled off his bed and made the drop to the floor all in one movement, knees flexing easily as his feet thumped to the floor. Standing in the middle of the rabble now, he took a brief moment to be amused by the surprise on all of their faces before turning to look at Barnaby Fitz, the brat who’d spoken first and whom Bond recognized now as the ringleader. 

“Go. The fuck. To bed,” James said slowly and evenly, adding with a bit less slowness but equal flatness of tone, “before I punch you so hard your teeth come out the back of your head.” It was a fairly flamboyant threat, but James knew how to back it up in posture and expression, as he stood with eyes narrowed steadily, hands in fists, and his weight balanced equally between each bare foot. 

The redhead - Pickering, Bond thought his name was - didn’t take the hint, and instead tried to puff up as he hissed, “You wouldn’t dare! They-!”

“What, put him in solitary? He just got out of there yesterday like it was nothin’,” said the boy who’d, up until now, been sleeping on the lower bunk beneath James'. They’d had this sleeping arrangement a few times before - enough times for the rotund boy to realize the disadvantages inherent with irritating the top occupant. Wise birds did not shit in their own nest. The round boy was already backing down. 

Which left just Pickering and Fitz, who were looking decidedly less enthused with their game now that someone with _teeth_ had intervened. Still, Fitz had the balls to bare his own teeth and snarl, “This isn’t your game, Bond.”

“Yes, but it’s keeping me from bloody sleeping,” James retorted with a combination of laziness and thick irritation - with, said together, made him sound capable of killing over it without a care in the world. Basically, he sounded reckless and pissed all a once, a tone of voice that he’d cultured over the years for its usefulness. He watched as his bunkmate slunk back into the shadows of his bed like a worm back into its hole. Q remained pressed against the wall to James' left, wisely silent, his eyes almost impossibly huge behind his glasses in the dimness. 

James saw it in the other boys’ eyes the moment they were going to back off. It was far from a total retreat, but James weathered their glares, replete in the knowledge that his reputation was like a prickly shield all around him. “Fine. I’m too tired for this anyway,” Fitz sniffed, a boldfaced lie that James tactfully left alone. With a sort of uneasy understanding, Bond, Fitz, and Pickering nodded to one another, and when the latter two walked away, James turned without another word and hauled himself back up onto his bunk.

There. Problem solved. 

Yeah, right. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bond has stopped people from bothering the amnesiac kid - it is officially no longer his problem.  
Until it is.
> 
> Or: the chapter in which Q somehow becomes James' problem, and James doesn't fight against that as hard as he probably should.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S TIME TO BRING ON THE CUTE!!! But also the hurt/comfort, because this is the chapter where I bring in Vesper... and any of you who have read my fics before know that Vesper is never the protagonist of my stories...

“Bond?” The voice was soft, and got softer when Bond’s lower-bunk-mate made a growling noise. “Bond? Are you still awake?”

Having barely rolled over onto his back, James sighed explosively and realized that this wasn’t going to go away if he ignored it. “I just got up here, Q, of course I’m awake,” he muttered back. 

That tone would have warned away most anyone, but apparently it sounded like permission to talk to Q. “I don’t think those two are ready to let this go, and the only free bed left is… It’s over by them. So the statistical likelihood-”

“ ‘Statistical likelihood’?” James parroted back incredulously, as he stared at the ceiling and felt the air vent blow chill air across his face.

Q had moved around to the foot of the bunkbed, where the supports created a natural ladder. James already had an idea where this was going, and sighed silently and closed his eyes as Q finished with painful uncertainty, “-The likelihood of them ganging up on me again before morning is one-hundred percent. I just want to sleep.” Q sounded so pathetic; it was enough to make Bond moan softly in resignation and wonder when in the world he’d gone soft. Then Bond jumped and coiled into a half-sitting position, because when Q spoke next, it was from far closer than expected: he’d scaled the rungs in near-silence and his head was now poking over the mattress by Bond’s feet, looking pleading and as innocent as a ball of dandelion fluff. “Please… can I come up there with you?”

“What the _fu_-? No,” Bond growled back reflexively. He’d almost kicked Q reflexively, too, but restrained the urge. Instead he sat up the rest of the way, taut with wariness and incredulity. 

Impossibly, the smaller boy’s eyes got wider and more limpid. “_Please_?”

“Just because I protected you-!” James started to hiss, then blanched a little at his own wording. He corrected quickly, “I only intervened because I wanted to fucking sleep, not because I care what happens to you.”

Q flinched, hard, and it was the single most painful thing that James could ever recall watching. Those big eyes looked down, and Q’s head ducked a little, and even if he didn’t actually climb down yet, he shrunk into himself like a little bird with its feathers wetted - and it all served to make James abruptly feel like a bastard in a way that nothing had for years. Lips pursing, Q went on, less doggedly and instead more desperately, like he was going to cry, “I promise I won’t take up any room - you won’t even notice that I’m up here! I just want to sleep, and last night-”

Silently, James prayed Q wouldn’t finish that sentence. But, like most other things, he didn’t get his wish. Damn it all.

“-I ended up sleeping on the floor, because I was _scared-_!” There were definitely tears in Q’s eyes, although he was doing an admirable job of keeping his voice down, and the tears hadn’t fallen down his cheeks from pure stubbornness. “-And that red-haired boy-”

“Fitz. That bastard’s name is Fitz,” James supplied resignedly. He flopped back onto his back and rubbed a hand over his eyes, realizing that he’d lost. And that he’d lost to a fluffy-haired amnesiac who thought his name was a letter of the alphabet and who barely stood as high as Bond’s shoulder.

“Why is Fitz so mean?” Q asked in a fragile whisper, instead of finishing his story. The question surprised Bond into looking down towards him again, brows beetled. 

“Because everyone here is like that,” was all James could think to say, because it was the truth as he knew it, “Anyone with any power, at least.”

“But not you,” Q replied with every indication that he believed what he was saying. 

James didn’t know what to do with this. It was fucking late, and he hadn’t slept last night either, and already he could hear his lower bunk-mate grumbling threateningly because of the continued chatter. Realizing that it would probably take hours (at the least) to figure Q out even in daylight, James sighed from the bottom of his lungs to make his disapproval clear, but lifted a hand beckoningly. “Fine. But if you kick me once in the night, I’m kicking you right out and onto the floor.”

Bond had barely been on the first word, and already the smaller boy was scrambling up, his features transformed as if by magic into the broadest smile that James had possibly ever seen. He was so used to the jaded, cagy looks more common in St. Joseph’s that the expression mystified him for a second, so that he finished his warning rather distractedly, and just stared as Q gathered his stick-figure limbs to himself atop the lumpy mattress. As promised, the kid didn’t try to take up much space, instead curling up into a little ball against the wall at James' feet. Tucked under the blankets there, Q poked his head out, a shy and hesitant smile still coloring his expression as he whispered, “This all right?”

“Yeah,” James replied dully, propped up on his elbows. He found himself adding unconsciously, “Don’t kick the blankets off, or we both might freeze. The vent above us shoots cold air all night.”

“Okay,” Q conceded all too easily. The boy plucked off his glasses, and seemed to find a decently safe place to tuck them, against one of the bed-posts that rose up about a foot from each corner of the bed. If Q kicked in his sleep, he might break them, but they weren’t in the open where someone would steal them, at least, or where they’d fall in the night. With that, Q ducked beneath the blankets entirely, until he was just a lump that James could see and feel against his right shin. “Thank you, Bond,” was the incredibly polite and painfully heartfelt murmur that emerged a few moments later. 

Utterly at a loss as to how it had all come to this, Bond lay back down again and rolled onto his side, although he could still feel a knobby knee and some cold toes against his calves, impossible to ignore. Gritting his teeth, resisting the urge to just scream at the insanity of it all, James ground out, “Just go the fuck to sleep,” before going quiet himself. If he said the command in a soft voice, it was only because everyone around them was trying to fall asleep, too.

~^~ 

James was an early riser by necessity; heavy sleepers and late sleepers (which were often the same thing) were prime targets for those awake, and James had vowed to never be a target. Therefore, he was among the first to stir in the wee morning hours, even before the St. Joseph’s staff began the call for breakfast. And therefore, no one else was really awake and watching as blue eyes opened, narrowed in bewilderment, and then connected the sensation of something lumpy and warm against his back with memories of the night before. 

As promised, Bond gave Q a little kick and generally grumbled to make his displeasure known. Since Q hadn’t precisely kicked him first, however, and they hadn’t really laid out rules for what would happen if the smaller boy cuddled up to him in the night, James' actions were halfhearted at best. In fact, they only barely served to _wake_ Q, who clearly hadn’t learned the rules about sleeping lightly. While Bond snarked at him and made a show of pushing him away, Q merely curled deeper into the blankets and murmured sleepily; James' pushing only served to roll him up like a caterpillar, safely tucked against the wall, and after a moment, the older boy gave up on the farce entirely. With a sigh, James sat up, dragging his hand back through his hair. 

Not wanting to draw attention to last night’s sleeping arrangements, but also wanting Q to actually wake up in time to eat breakfast, James leaned over and found a bony shoulder amidst the blanket nest. “Come on, Q, wake up or the food will be all gone,” he said more quietly, and for some reason that worked better than all of his growling, because Q twitched and started to fight his way free of the blankets. 

Job completed, Bond slipped off the bed, already awake and alert and resigned to whatever troubles the day would most certainly bring. Q would come or he wouldn’t. It wasn’t his problem anymore. 

Breakfast was a no more sordid affair than usual, with scores of kids milling about and squabbling over food. No one of import seemed to have noticed last night’s arrangement, so James was generally ignored, as befitted someone who only caused trouble if someone else caused trouble first - but was capable of causing a helluva lot of trouble if that did happen. It wasn’t until after James had gotten his breakfast and eaten it, and was returning from handing his empty plate over to the kitchen staff, that he saw Q sitting beneath James' usual window-perch. He had an empty plate beside him, too, but by the forlorn look on his face, he hadn’t been the one to clean it off. 

“You really need to learn to sneak food somewhere other than your plate,” James opined before he could stop himself, coming to a halt in front of Q and stuffing his hands in his pockets as big hazel eyes snapped up to him. 

“I thought of that,” Q complained, making a tiny huffing sound that briefly puffed up his narrow chest before collapsing it again, “But a girl in front of me tried putting food in her pockets, and I saw the cook reach over and rap her knuckles with a ladle!”

“Well, of course, because we’re not supposed to do that.”

“But you did it.” Q looked so endearingly confused. “And you just told _me_ to do it!”

Most of the time, James reserved his smiles for when he was skinning someone at cards, or when he took the long way home through the sloping hills beyond the city lights, but now he allowed himself a small, secretive smirk, and replied, “I told you to _sneak_ food. And _I_ don’t get caught.”

It was unexpectedly flattering to see the moment when Q got it, his eyes so expressive that it was like reading a neon sign, a beacon that clearly showed understanding when it turned on. Q looked shocked, but also impressed, and James felt an involuntary thrill of pride shiver up his back. 

Still looking impressed, the smaller boy tried on a smile, and said with all appearance of sincerity - something rare in St. Joseph’s, “I don’t know where you learned to do that without someone noticing you, but I wish I could.” The head of tousled, dark hair shook back and forth, even if Q never broke eye-contact, and said self-deprecatingly and with that perfect diction that made Bond think of upper-class Brits, “I may not have any memory to speak of, but it does not seem that I was very sneaky in my former life. At least not in any way that seems to be very helpful right now.”

Someone hollered something, briefly derailing Bond’s attention and reminding him that he and Q weren’t the only people in this place. Tensing instinctively, Bond looked up and around, but noticed the clock first. Damn, he had to go to work soon. The thought of bagging groceries made him shift from foot to foot, suddenly eager to run somewhere. Preferably far away. The thought was tempting. First, though…

Shifting his weight again, this time awkwardly, James looked back down at Q, who was watching him curiously now. When the younger, memoryless boy cocked his head like that, he looked like a dark-feathered baby bird, all innocence and interest. “Here,” James said without preamble, and produced an apple seemingly out of nowhere. In reality, St. Joseph’s always provided overly large clothing, making it easier for James to secret things away under his pullovers. He stepped close enough to drop it down into Q’s startled lap, then walked away as he suggested, “I’d suggest you learn to steal food for yourself.”

Even as he said it, though, his tone softened a bit, so the edge of warning was hardly there at all.

~^~

Older children like James were technically allowed more freedom outside the orphanage, to assist in their ‘transition’ into adult, independent life. Technically, they had a curfew, but so long as they didn’t cause trouble, it was flexible. That meant that when Bond stayed out until after dark, he made sure to slip in with no one noticing him, and likewise had become the king of discretion. Working at the grocery store gave him better hours, but hustling people at pool paid better, so long as he knew when to cut his losses and head on back to St. Joseph’s. The worst part about coming in late meant he didn’t get first choice for beds and sometimes missed supper, but his drafty corner bunk was often left open for him, if not out of respect than because everyone thought he was crazy for liking to sleep there. 

James slipped into St. Joseph’s with only the stars to mind him, the halls quiet except for the various murmurs of budding insomniacs. Most all of the children were kept busy during the day either with lessons or with chores, anything to tire the lot of them out, so the adults could sleep now under the cover of quiet and dark. Because of that comparative quiet, however, Bond was able to hear the out-of-place sounds of a scuffle. Despite knowing full well the truth in the ‘curiosity killed the cat’ adage, James found himself detouring to check it out, his feet treading the tiles with practiced silence.

The noise was coming from one of the loos, and while it was hushed enough that it would never draw the attention of the sleeping adults, it got louder as James got progressively closer, until he was able to derive words and scuffling noises. 

“How do you like that, you little asswipe? The grown-ups might love you and think you’re _so cute_, but no one else does - _got it_?” 

“Please… Stop it-!” 

“Right now, you’re nothing, so you’d better learn to show some respect. What did you think this place was, huh? A fucking charity?”

“Haha, look at ’im, Graham. He’s like a little scared rabbit, all shakin’!”

Disregarding the fact that this was, indeed, a place run by charity, Bond only knew one kid in all of St. Joseph’s who said ‘please.’ With a sinking sensation at the pit of his stomach, James realized that Q’s vulnerability had finally become too tempting for some of the nastier individuals at the orphanage, and it sounded like at least two kids had him cornered in the bathroom right now. 

It turned out to be three kids. Bond silently rounded the corner and eased open the door to see two boys and a girl, circled up in front of one of the bathroom stalls, where presumably Q was, if the socked feet just visible under the divider were anything to go by. The girl, Vesper, was a ‘transitioner’ like James was, just a bit too old to still be a cute, adoptable puppy at the pound, but too young to live on her own yet. She was a lot like James in background, too, having hopped from home to home for years before arriving here, her last stop - but despite that, Bond had never quite warmed up to her, something about her cool eyes and sharp smile making quiet alarm bells go off in his head. That, and he’d heard she’d gotten the last person to cross her sent to a youth detention center - rumor had it the boy hadn’t actually done anything, but Vesper had somehow managed to frame him anyway. James had to admit, it was a cunning job, but that was just another reason to keep away from Vesper. Predators avoided other predators. The other two boys harassing Q were younger, two lackeys that Bond recognized only as nameless faces that he passed in the halls. 

“There’s a pecking order around here, and you need to learn it,” Vesper said, almost sweetly, as one of her companions edged forward, and Q let out a noise of alarm. 

Usually, James wasn’t the interfering type, but right now, enough was enough for him. He strode the rest of the way in, letting the door thud closed. “A pecking order, you say?” he said quietly just as the sound faded. A little bit of drama never hurt anyone, and he wasn’t above making an entrance. 

Vesper’s smile had fallen away instantly, and while she was actually kind of a pretty girl, her face looked cold and almost doll-like when it wasn’t animated by her teasing smirk anymore. Her two followers were less composed, jumping visibly and gasping as they realized that their late-night shenanigans hadn’t gone completely unnoticed. Bond heard a soft whimper from out of sight in the stall, a wet sniffle. In his pockets, Bond felt his hands curled into fists, and fought to keep his expression flat and neutral. 

Like any orphan worth their salt, Vesper recovered quickly, pulling on a mask she probably knew very well. Her smile was bright but sharp, her dark lashes kissing her cheeks as she gave a quick blink as if to banish her surprise, then narrowed her eyes. “Bond, right? James Bond?” she surprised Bond in turn by knowing his whole name; as a rule, kids only knew the names of friends or people they respected or feared in St. Joseph’s. Bond was sure he’d remember making friends with Vesper, so it had to be one of the latter two options. “I thought you were famous for keeping to yourself.”

“Yeah, for not butting into other people’s business,” one of the other brats sneered from behind Vesper. He no doubt felt safe there, but still drew back and buttoned his lips when James slid a frosted glare over to him, showing contempt while keeping his focus mainly on Vesper. She wasn’t physically imposing, but she had a reputation for having dangerous skills that went beyond the physical.

Well, so did James.

“Fine, if you don’t want the warning,” he said, crafting his voice to convey disgruntlement and offhandedness, and just a touch of superiority. He shrugged and took his hands out of his pockets as if preparing to turn and leave, knowing that the shift in his weight would convey it, too, even to the two younger goons who were too stupid to read body-language on a conscious level. 

Stupid Young Goon Number One immediately barked, “Wait - what warning?”

Bait taken. James lowered his lids to half-mast, narrowing his gaze just a bit to match Vesper’s cautious watchfulness, and replied as if grudgingly, “You think I’m supposed to be up this late? I just got in and was hoping to avoid notice, but I almost got caught by Mrs. Bartleby-” He picked a name of one old woman known to get up at odd hours; she’d actually caught him coming in after curfew before. “-And I’ve still got a ways to go before I’m back to the dorm where I’m supposed to be, so if you idiots keep making noise, we’re all screwed.”

The lie was a good one: just the right mixture of self-interest, logic, and believable threat. Even Vesper’s eyes widened, although she opened and closed her mouth for a moment, clearly looking to pry the argument apart and see if James was really hiding a lie behind his teeth. Vesper’s companions were made of less discerning stuff, however, and immediately panicked. Amidst phrases like “She’s going to kill us!” and “Oh, shit!” they scrambled forward, forgetting everything but their own survival instincts as they ran for the door. James let them past, glad to have them gone. 

For a second more, Vesper watched James as if trying to figure him out, then turned one last time to the open stall and its unfortunate occupant. “Just remember, rabbit, you’re at the bottom of the food-chain here, and I could eat you alive if I felt like it,” she snapped with a little fake lunge. Bond watched socked feet scramble and heard a startled body slam back against the wall, even though Vesper didn’t press her attack, but instead backed off with a self-satisfied little smile. She didn’t run for the door like the other two, but instead sauntered past Bond, giving him a considering, up-and-down look as she went. Bond was more than old enough to know what that look meant, but kept his expression shuttered, the situation still feeling dangerous. 

“Catch you later, I guess?” she said, mouth quirking upwards.

James mentally scrambled for just a heartbeat before getting his face to mimic hers, playful and dangerous. “Maybe,” he teased, and then she was gone, picking up speed and slipping out. Only once the door thumped shut did Bond let his shoulders slump, relaxing, his ‘hardened criminal’ expression slipping into something a bit more appropriate for his age - that is to say, an expression that betrayed resigned worry as he trotted quickly towards the open stall. 

Inside, as he’d already guessed, was poor Q. The kid looked terrible. The first thing that was noticeable was that he’d been stripped, and was standing huddled between the toilet and the wall in just his pants and socks, although he at least still had his glasses to see by. Shivering and clearly scared out of his mind, he huddled there, arms tight to his chest and shoulders up around his ears, not looking at anything, just down. 

Flushing a little bit in embarrassment himself, Bond looked around quickly, and was relieved to see that Q’s clothing hadn’t gone far; he retrieved Q’s trousers and shirt from a stall across the way, where they’d been negligently tossed. Q hadn’t moved by the time he came back to him, and James was beginning to recognize the look of someone who hadn’t been able to escape abuse physically, so they’d done what they could and escaped mentally, to some cramped, suffocating, but _safe_ place deep inside themselves. James sighed out his nose slowly, feeling sympathy born of understanding throb in his chest. “Here,” he said as gently as he could, and although he extended the hand with Q’s clothing slowly, the little boy still flinched so hard he hit the wall again. “Easy, easy,” James hushed. After a moment when Q’s eyes still did not lift or return from the middle distance, the older boy took a risk, easing a slow foot forward, ultimately coming close enough to pull the shirt over Q’s head. When that garnered a reaction, albeit a muted one in the form of Q clumsily getting his head through the head-hole, James pressed his free hand against the chilled skin of Q’s back and used a bit of strength to pry the kid out of the stall. 

Q still wasn’t fully functional by the time they were out in the open again, but James didn’t push it. He was content enough when the dark-haired boy pulled his shirt on, and then accepted his trousers back to slip into those, ending at least one facet of his humiliation, although the trauma was harder to shake loose of. “Come on,” was all James said, the moment his younger companion was dressed, and didn’t wait to see if Q would look up at him before laying a coaxing hand between those bony little shoulder-blades again. 

Even in the dark of the unlit halls, James navigated easily, confidently taking the shortest route back to the crowded dormitory. Q started sniffling about halfway back, his head still ducked down like a turtle between his shoulders, his whole body drawn tightly in on itself even as he kept up with James' longer legs. The blond-haired boy only shushed him when they approached the dormitory doors, because weakness wasn’t something to advertise to a roomful of St. Joseph’s boys, even if they were hopefully all asleep. “Shhh,” Bond crooned a little, following instincts and not overthinking it as he lifted his hand from Q’s back to his head, smoothing his wild mess of hair down. Q gave one louder little hiccup, as if the gentle touch had somehow jarred it loose, but then pulled in a ragged breath that seemed to hold the noise in. He stayed obediently quiet, and James took that as his cue to lead them both forward again, through the doors. 

One stroke of good fortune came in the form of Bond’s usual bed still being unoccupied; the denizen under it was already snoring, and no one was awake enough or interested enough to raise their heads as Bond led Q back to the corner bunk. From there, he silently urged him up the makeshift rungs, meeting Q’s eyes with nothing but gentle expectancy when the younger boy finally took notice of his surroundings enough to look at Bond. The kid seemed startled that he was being coaxed to go where he’d had to beg to go last night, but the only argument he gave was in the form of confused, wide eyes - and Bond’s only answer was to nod impatiently towards the top bunk and give another soft nudge. Q gave in and climbed, letting loose one last, wet sniffle as he hauled himself up with shaking limbs. Bond was quick to follow him.

James topped the bed to see Q huddled uncertainly in the middle of it, knees drawn up and arms ringing them, brows pulled together in a troubled expression that forewarned of impending tears. Q was holding it together admirably well, however, and James had to respect that, so he scooted forward himself until he could wrap an arm around those knobby shoulders; he felt the hard quaking of them, and stilled it against his side, because if Q could stay strong for this long, then he deserved a bit of support. “You’re safe now,” he whispered in an undertone, because he’d always wished that someone would say that to him. Q was looking up at him, wet-eyed and scared, and so fragile now that his world was shattered. Hell, most of Q’s world was _gone_, obliterated by the amnesia - and now the tiny, recent bit that he _did_ remember was going to shit. 

Q didn’t deserve that. 

Rubbing Q’s shoulder for a moment as he did a reflexive scan about the room, noting nothing dangerous or worrisome amidst the rows of stacked beds, James pulled the blankets back. He pulled Q down with him as he bedded down for the night, placing the younger boy against the wall and feeling how he nearly came apart at the seams again, the movement rattling him almost physically. However, instead of crying out or trying to run away, Q clung to James, his skinny fingers digging into James' ribs and his breath huffing out against James' spine as Q’s face pressed against his back. James didn’t like having his back to the room, and he figured that it worked well for both of them if James lay at guard while Q (hopefully) slept in the little pocket of safety created between Bond’s back and the wall. 

He heard a few choked whimpers behind him, all muffled against the blankets, the back of his shirt, the valley of his spine. James let Q wrestle with his lingering fears without saying a word, although he did reach a hand back to tug the blankets up higher, over the top of Q’s head, murmuring by way of explanation, “Don’t get cold.” He felt the shaky nod when the rim of Q’s glasses scratched at him, but Q’s hands didn’t let go, and the younger boy remained a limpet attached to his back. He’d probably have little fingertip-shaped bruises in the morning, but was surprisingly unbothered by that. 

“Go to sleep,” James whispered the command eventually, to which Q stilled and listened, as attentive as a fawn’s raised ears, “I’ll wake you up in the morning before breakfast starts.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bond, in all of his tough-guy glory, with all of his rough history (which you'll learn more and more about), is soft when it counts <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Other people start noticing that James has a shadow. 
> 
> Or, the chapter in which everyone is too damned observant... including, perhaps, Q himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy long weekend, y'all! I'm still keeping up with the one-chapter a week, so you can depend on this being updated like that as time goes on :) Likewise with _The Magic of Christmas_.

~^~

Bond woke up and made to stretch a bit, only to have his shirt snag on something. It took a second more for him to realize that his shirt wasn’t snagged on anything, something was snagged _on his shirt_, and that something was Q, still there from last night. 

Craning his neck to look back over his shoulder, James saw tufts of dark hair that had escaped from under the blanket, and the gentle rising and falling of a sleeping chest. It felt like one of Q’s hands was fisted in his shirt so that poky knuckles were kneading his left shoulder-blade, while Q’s other hand was basically where it had been last night, hooked over Bond’s ribs on the right side, tangled in the material there with a deathgrip. Either for comfort or for warmth, Q was also still pressed as tightly to him as a shell to a turtle. 

James cast a quick glance around the room, reassuring himself that no one was paying any attention to the corner top bunk (or awake at all), then reached back to give Q’s arm a quick squeeze. “Wake up, Q,” he said, even as the fingers attached to that arm gave a spasm against his side and a small, distressed noise was emitted. Q hadn’t become a morning person overnight, so he had to still be half-asleep, but was waking up fearful already. James' heart gave a twist and his expression softened despite itself. “It’s all right, Q. Come on, if you don’t let go, we’ll miss breakfast.” Which wasn’t entirely true; James could break out of holds far stronger than that of Q’s slender digits tangled in his shirt, if he truly wanted to get to the dining hall. But instead he stayed patiently where he was, giving the kid time to rouse slowly, eventually making a small, disgruntled noise before lifting his head. Q’s hair stood up in spectacular disarray as the blanket slipped off, and his glasses were comically askew from sleeping in them, but at least he appeared nothing more that dazed. Bond felt a flicker of relief to see that last night’s terror had faded, leaving the pleasantly unaware kid that James was more used to. 

“It’s morning?” Q mumbled sleepily, blinking like an owl. He finally let go of James' shirt, and the older boy wasted no time in sitting up and performing his usual, lithe jump from the bed to the floor. He looked back up to see a tousled dark head looking down at him, still sleep-mussed, a line forming between this eyebrows as he frowned and waited for an answer that would make sense. 

So, despite the fact that James usually had no patience for anyone but himself, the blond-haired boy said, “Yes, Q, it’s morning. Or at least that’s what the smell of toast and eggs is telling me.” He paused a moment, comfortable with being flippant, but less sure of himself as he added, “Get down here. I don’t want to leave you behind.”

He tried to sound gruff, and it must have worked, because it galvanized Q into action. The smaller boy wasn’t equipped to just drop off the edge of the bed and land without hurting himself, but he very nearly fell anyway as he scrambled down the horizontal slats. Despite how quiet and unassuming Q could be on level ground, his adroitness apparently didn’t extend to climbing, and Bond huffed and rolled his eyes even as he grabbed a handful of Q’s shirt to keep him from falling. He did his best to project annoyance, but waved aside Q’s hurriedly muttered apologies and instead began walking towards the dining hall as soon as he knew the smaller boy was upright and on Bond’s heels. And there Q stayed, tight as a shadow. 

At first, no one really noticed that James' loner status had been interrupted by a tagalong - after all, there was a slow-growing exodus to breakfast as there was every morning, many streams of children feeding into the main river of the food-line. Therefore, it was easily passed off as coincidence that one bespectacled child in particular always dogged Bond’s footsteps even as the crowd got thicker, jostling one another for position. After both James and Q had full plates, however (and James had a bit more than that secreted away on his person), it became a bit more obvious that the amnesiac kid was scampering along in James' wake, taking great pains to keep up. James pretended not to notice, his usual mask of disinterest (interspersed with don’t-fuck-with-me glares as needed) firmly in place even if he kept some of his focus on the quiet footsteps behind him. Q still didn’t have shoes, his socked feet making little _shush-shush_ sounds that just touched the edge of James' hearing.

“Up you get,” James commanded when they both reached his usual window-seat, just off the main dining hall where everyone was quickly filling up the long table and benches. James actually wondered if Q could get up onto the ledge without losing his food, but the kid made it, looking indelibly grateful for the invitation. As soon as Q had scrambled into place and had his tray in hand, he made sure to take up as little space as possible, too, which both surprised and pleased James. He wasn’t used to sharing space - took pains to make sure he didn’t have to, actually - and the fact that Q was respecting his space was something he appreciated. The window seat wasn’t wide, but once they were both up there, they were able to sit and eat comfortably enough, feet vying just a little bit for room. 

For a moment, that was all they did: share space and eat. Before long, however - inevitably - Q sucked in a little breath-

“Don’t thank me,” James interrupted without looking up. He still sensed surprised eyes turn to him, and could imagine that inquisitive face, but for some reason felt uncomfortable meeting it. “I didn’t help you so that I’d have you in my debt, so the best kind of thanks you can give me is to just let me eat my breakfast like usual.” Unsure what else to say, but figuring that that just about covered it, James went back to eating. When he didn’t hear Q do the same, he murmured less gruffly, “You should eat, too, before someone gets the wrong idea and thinks you don’t want it.”

That got a response; soon there was the scrape of silverware and swift munching. James fought a smile, feeling both amused and a little bit triumphant. He also, beneath it all - somewhere that he didn’t have to acknowledge it - was slightly proud that Q was learning a survival skill or two. The kid wasn’t stupid, just naive and new to the reality of St. Joseph’s. 

A few minutes later, just as they both began to finish up, James didn’t need to hear Q’s little gasp to know that someone was approaching from behind him; he’d been listening for footsteps from the moment he and Q had settled down. Any change in routine tended to attract attention, usually the bad kind. “Picking up strays, are ya, Bond?” he heard the taunt, but didn’t recognize the voice - which meant it wasn’t someone big enough or bad enough for him to bother with. James just kept eating, peripherally aware that Q had gone very still against his side of the window. 

The voice went on, growing more vexed, “Hey! I’m talking to you.”

“And I’m eating,” James replied, which he thought was quite polite of him. He had half a mind not to respond at all. When he heard the footsteps coming closer, however - multiple pairs of feet now discernible - the blond-haired boy lifted his head and grew instantly ready, his omnipresent alertness showing through. The two boys who’d been approaching stopped in their tracks, made wary by the sudden but subtle change in James' demeanor. 

The second boy, James _did_ recognize. Younger than Bond but big for his age, this was a monster to watch out for, and James made a few quick calculations in his head. Math wasn’t exactly his strong-suit, but he could calculate some things intuitively: distance, the odds for and against him, and the pros and cons of starting something in the middle of breakfast. He wasn’t keen on being put in solitary detention again. 

The second boy, the bigger one, jutted his chin at his partner in crime even as he sniped, “My friend ’ere asked you a question, Bond. We was wonderin’ if you’d gone soft.” 

James' eyes slid to Q, and the bespectacled boy shrank back. A quick glance was all it took for Bond to see that Q was breathing fast and shallow like a small rabbit in the grass, last night’s terror resurfacing in his big hazel eyes. It made Bond unaccountably angry to see, and he turned back to their antagonists with a clear ‘fuck-off’ kind of glower. “Not soft,” he growled back, although his tone was, indeed, very soft. Calm-before-a-storm soft.

The other boys misinterpreted it, although they had the good instincts to shift their uneasy focus from James to his more vulnerable companion. The older of the two bullies actually had the audacity to grin, revealing a striking gap between his front two teeth. “Come on, Quincy, we just wanna hava chat with you,” he said, going for cajoling. When Q didn’t respond any more than James had at first, the older boy went on, “We’re tryin’ t’play nice here, kid, but we don’t have to.”

“So just come wif us,” the youngest viper piped up in a moment of bravery. 

“Yeah, or we’ll just have t’get unpleasant, yeah?” Sly eyes cut briefly to Bond (who was trying to keep his own expression under control), then back to Q to say _sotto voce_, “Bond ’ere is being real nice to ya, but we both know he hates trouble. You don’t wanna be trouble to ’em, do ya?”

That finally seemed to sway Q. The bespectacled kid had been holding out pretty well so far, lips tightly pressed together even if he couldn’t keep the anxiety out of his eyes. That anxiety visibly shot up a notch, however, at the implication that he’d use up all of Bond’s goodwill if this kept up. Big hazel eyes flashed over to James, furtively and fearfully, and then Q’s head went down and his shoulders went up again, just like last night. As Q started to put his tray down and unfold his baby-bird legs as if to get down off the ledge, James decided abruptly that he’d had just about enough of this. He quickly shot out one lean leg to block Q’s egress from the window-ledge, watching Q’s head jerk up in surprise. 

Still frowning - thunderously angry now, just not at Q - James growled, “You stay fucking put.” He felt the edges of a Scottish brogue roll into the words, thickening his ‘u’s and sharpening his ‘k’s. It felt like he had something hot and nasty crouched behind his teeth, so he turned it towards the two bullies just as soon as he was sure Q wasn’t going to do something stupidly self-sacrificing, like move. Instead, _James_ moved. His own tray made a light clatter on the smooth ledge but his feet were silent as he swung them to the floor, standing to his full height. He towered over the youngest bully, although the other one managed to puff himself up and gain a few inches, putting him almost on James' level.

Too bad height wasn’t the determining factor in most altercations. James got into a lot of brawls - some of them for money - and he never won because he was taller. No, he generally won because he was _meaner_. 

“I said,” James stated quietly and succinctly, words picked out with razor clearness as he made the conscious decision to play up his British accent instead of his Scottish one, because it made him sound older, “I was eating.” He cocked his head, purposefully shutting down the emotions on his face in a way he’d learned to do in his second home, when emotions were like tripwires - they’d set off traps. He didn’t realize how frosted it made his eyes, but he knew that it made something inside of him feel rigid and sharp and strong, like metal being pummelled into a knife. “And now I’m not eating. How happy do you think that makes me?”

Now the other boys were beginning to sense something was wrong. A few heads were turning in the dining hall, too, although for the most part, the little quartet was out of sight, out of mind. The adults that minded the rest of the St. Joseph’s boys and girls weren’t watching. 

“Bond…” Q said, quiet and rife with unease. “Bond, there doesn’t need to be any altercation,” he squeaked hesitantly.

That got the older bully - Bensen, James remembered his name now - to smirk again. “Yeah, Bond - you hear ’im? Yer little pet says-”

And that was when James flashed out a fist and flattened Bensen’s nose. It was a fast rabbit-punch, calculated to center a lot of force swiftly on one spot - and a soft spot, with no teeth to slice open James' knuckles and leave obvious evidence. Of course, Bensen started leaking blood out of his nose immediately, but he also toppled over, semi-conscious. James tried to feel a bit bad about that, but couldn’t find it in him. ‘_Maybe I’m a bit messed up after all_,’ he thought to himself, staring at where Bensen was swaying dazedly on his arse and dripping blood all over his own lap and shirtfront. 

His crony immediately showed his true colors by making as if to run back to the dining hall - and the adults - but James cut him off. 

“If you nark on me,” James said very evenly, almost pleasantly, resigning himself to the fact that he wasn’t going to feel guilt like a normal person, “I’ll smear your nose all across your face worse than I did your partner.”

The little viper’s eyes got huge and scandalized. He was already crouched down like some weasel arching itself to look bigger, but he didn’t try and make a break for it. “They’ll put you in solitary,” he snapped like that was some kind of weapon. 

James smiled, even if it felt strange - like being puppet and puppetmaster at the same time, pulling his own strings. “Haven’t you heard? I’ve been in solitary more times than anyone here.” He folded his arms and leaned forward a little, all the while calculating how long he had before someone _else_ noticed what was going on and called for help. “I even kind of like it there.”

That was the last straw for the smaller bully’s bravery, and when he ran, it was in the opposite direction - away from everyone, down the empty hall. Bensen was moaning softly and trying to stop his nose from bleeding with his sleeve, while simultaneously trying not to touch his nose at all. James thought he might have broken it. “Q, stuff the last of your food in your mouth or in your pockets, we’ve got to-” James started to command quietly, then jumped in surprise as the dark-haired boy slid past him like a fluffy-headed wraith. Q went right up to Bensen, and it took James a puzzled second to see the napkins bunched up in Q’s hands, which he then pressed to Bensen’s nose. Q mumbled something to his would-be-antagonist that James didn’t catch, and skittered back out of range as soon as Bensen pressed the tissues to his nose by himself. It was at that point that Bond guiltily reevaluated the situation and admitted that, yes, Bensen probably looked like the lesser of two evils right now. It hurt a surprising amount to realize that, and how Q might be rethinking the wisdom of being anywhere near the infamous James Bond.

Q came back to him, however, and in fact continued to shoot wary looks at the bully sitting and bleeding behind him. “What do we do now?” the bespectacled boy asked, once he was back at James' side. In fact, he stood as close to James as before all of this had happened, still playing the shadow. “And what is ‘solitary’?”

“Now, we clear out before someone comes and realizes that I just cleaned Bensen’s clock,” James replied automatically, just staring down at his companion and blinking. He answered the other question on auto-pilot, too, as he tried to fathom why Q still wanted anything to do with him. “Solitary is where they put kids who can’t get along with others.”

“Oh…” Q digested that, looking down, only to look up again a split-second later with something xyresically keen in his eyes. “That’s where you were coming back from, that day I saw you in the hall, right after I got here.”

Although taken aback by Q’s putting two and two together, James' survival instincts were kicking in. He looked around them warily, noting that a growing number of orphans were craning their necks from the distant tables, too curious. He found Q’s shoulder with a hand, turning him. “Don’t worry about that,” he said distractedly, “Come on.”

“What? Was I right?”

“Q-” James cut off in exasperation. “I’ll answer later. Just… come _on_.” 

Finally galvanized, Q took to his heels and scampered off in the direction James pushed him. About to follow, James paused… then detoured to the window to grab a biscuit. He’d eaten his fill already, but Q looked like a twig, so he probably would need it later.

~^~

‘Later’ saw them sitting on a bench a few halls over, five minutes having gone by with no sign of anyone raising the alarm. Q was munching the biscuit James had saved for him. 

The munching paused. “What are you thinking?”

Slouched back on the bench with his legs stretched out in front of him (while Q, by contrast, kept himself tucked up small and tight like a baby owl on a branch), James kept looking unseeingly at the far wall with its familiar, uncaring stone. “I’m thinking about how I had a momentary break from sanity and decided to break some bastard’s nose just because he interrupted my breakfast,” he said woodenly. It wasn’t really the truth, but even James wasn’t quite ready for the truth. The truth had entirely too much to do with the amnesiac kid sitting next to him. 

He heard Q gulp down his latest mouthful, and for a moment there was silence - although in his peripheral vision, James could see that Q was still regarding him. “Are you going to get in a lot of trouble for that?” Q asked after a moment, hushed.

“I might.” It didn’t make much difference; boys like James got into trouble as a matter of course. Sometimes they didn’t even have to _do_ anything. 

But Q persisted. “Like getting sent to… to solitary?”

James considered snapping at Q that it was dangerous to be nosy, but dismissed the idea without even given it a full moment’s thought. Instead, for some reason, he shrugged and answered again, “Yeah.”

“You looked really unhappy, after the last time you were there.”

Q’s voice, so quiet and so contrite, slipped through James' armor unexpected like a silver needle; the blond-haired boy actually jumped, turning to look at Q with a bewildered expression. Q was just sitting there, legs crossed and hands folded nervously around his overlapping ankles, biting nervously at his lip and looking at James over the tops of his glasses. Faced now by Bond’s startled scrutiny, Q looked down and rocked a bit where he sat, and began to babble, “I don’t know how I know that. I just… It was in the way you stood, how you held your shoulders. Your eyes.” One small hand lifted and waved vaguely in the direction of James' face before returning to clasping a stockinged ankle again. Self-conscious eyes hid behind a mass of tousled bangs. “I don’t know a lot of things, but I know that. I’m sorry.”

James could still only stare. He blinked a few times. Worked his throat with a swallow. Tried to say ‘_What the fuck are you sorry for_?’ but couldn’t get the reflexive anger past his tongue. He’d been faced with pity before - loads of it, and every time made him feel as shitty and worthless as the last. To pity someone, you had to look down on them, and people who pitied never did a fucking thing about it besides looking at him with those patronizing, soulfully sad eyes. With Q, though, it didn’t seem like pity somehow. 

Q didn’t seem aware of how close he was to being royally chewed out. Perhaps he’d been able to read Bond’s mood post-detention, but now he seemed blissfully unaware of the feathers he’d inadvertently ruffled. Sitting and swaying for a moment longer, Q suddenly twisted around, reaching behind him. “Here.” Facing forward again, Q dropped something into James' startled hands. 

Half of the biscuit. Q had left a perfectly equal portion behind. 

~^~

It was surprising that, when next they ran into one of the staff members of St. Joseph’s, it wasn’t James who was the person of interest.

“Quincy!” Mrs. Mitchel’s imperative voice made James instantly tense and Q physically jump. For a large woman, Mrs. Mitchel was hellishly good at sneaking up on people. “Just where do you think you’re off to?”

To be frank, both Q and James had just been wandering aimlessly. Well, James had been - and Q had stuck by him steadfastly in his ambling. Now befuddled, the smaller boy turned around and hesitantly shifted from foot to foot. 

Mrs. Mitchel’s eyebrow rose. Then she sighed, “Quincy, you’re supposed to be doing the breakfast dishes now. Everyone here does their part - and it’s your turn today.”

As Bond watched, those brilliant hazel eyes lit up, the memory surfacing. Q’s brain was damaged, clearly, but he was still transparently bright. Even if Q hadn’t just been babbling on about all the things he knew (but didn’t know how he knew), James would have seen the sharp light in Q’s eyes and known that he was smart. “Oh!” the bespectacled boy exclaimed, remembering now. 

“Don’t just make noises - hop to it!” Mrs. Mitchel commanded, and then simply turned to lead the way. She was self-assured in the knowledge that Q would follow, because only the foolish ever ignored orders by the headmistress herself. Even James tended to behave, if only because he had a functional sense of survivalism. 

Q started to obey. One of his feet (shod now, thanks to a pitstop in their travels) actually slid in the direction Mrs. Mitchel was going. But then the dark-haired boy froze… and he looked back at James with big, vulnerable eyes. Suddenly, the loquacious boy who had been coming out of his shell to talk about circuit-boards and car batteries was gone, replaced by something more like the scared thing that James had found in the bathroom last night. Q kept a stiff upper-lip, though, taking a deep breath and saying quietly, “Thank… Thank you for keeping me company. And for letting me share your bunk.” He paused, looked down, then visibly refused to glance around him like a spooked hare, looking for hawk-like shadows. “And I know you told me not to thank you for last night.” James, by this point, was wearing something of a pained look and trying not to admit how pathetic Q looked. Then Q did him in by finally looking back at him, eyes rounded and hopeful behind those ridiculous glasses, “Do you think they’ll leave me alone now? I mean, no one has bothered me all day. Except those boys at breakfast, I guess…”

James sighed, ran a hand back through his hair, and resisted the urge to tell Q that ‘all day’ wasn’t even ten o’clock yet - and even if Vesper’s crew didn’t hold grudges (James suspected they did), Q was like a soft, fuzzy hamster in a dog kennel. Someone would probably jump him the second he was on his own, now that Q’s ‘newness’ was wearing off. Sighing, James dropped his hands back to his sides and met the hazel eyes still locked attentively on his. Eventually, James was going to ask Q if he had any idea how adorable he was, and if he did this on purpose. Now, though, James just huffed out a breath and said, “I don’t know. But if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll go with you.” 

Q’s relief was almost palpable - like a rush of heat from a warmly opened door, after a lifetime in the cold. That’s how incandescent Q’s sudden smile was. “Really?” he squeaked, then gathered himself and said with a poor attempt at gravity, “I mean… you don’t have to.”

“Just lead the way, Q,” Bond ordered, gripping one bony shoulder and swiveling the smaller boy’s body around. It was beginning to feel like a habit. All the way to the kitchens, Bond stalked along silently in Q’s wake, puzzling out why the hell he was doing this while being bombarded with an entire history of soap that the amnesiac boy didn’t remember learning. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q being a little wholesome fluffmuffin has only begun, you can count on it <3


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q defends James, so James shows Q one of the few places that is precious to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings for a few more quick references to childhood abuse - nothing graphic, but these will continue to flit through James' narratives as the story continues.

Since Bond was ‘in transition’ and therefore had his own job outside of St. Joseph’s Home, he wasn’t expected to do chores - but he remembered them from as recently as last month. Dishes, laundry, mopping, even gardening in the broad expanse of cultivated mud between the Home and the rolling, beckoning moors - all were jobs that the children were expected to do. Not unlike the dark silence of detention, it was supposed to ‘build character.’ Unlike solitary, however, James didn’t necessarily mind washing dishes. It bored him out of his mind, but it didn’t eat away at him like hours in the noiseless dark did. 

This time, though, the boredom was alleviated by Q. The kid clearly thought that he was bulletproof so long as he was within Bond’s line of sight, which was fairly true - James had resigned himself to the fact that, for no real reason, he’d keep Q from being beat up if the situation arose. His protectiveness made literally no sense. Q couldn’t repay him in any way; the kid was basically useless, being too small to be an ally and too guileless to game the system. Bond may as well have taken a dust-bunny under his wing, yet as Q chattered on and on about the invention of steam engines, the older boy found himself almost smiling. The sleeves of his jumper rolled up to mid-bicep to keep them free of soapy water, James scrubbed and rinsed another plate, making sure that he put it in the drying rack instead of Q’s hands. The kid was an encyclopedia, but he wasn’t coordinated. James had already had to rescue one plate mid-fall when Q went to take it from James and then got distracted. 

“I wish I knew how I knew all of this,” Q groused, his perfect diction and youthful features making his pout more hilarious than anything else. James, because he was a general bastard, didn’t hold back the chuckle that rolled up the back of his throat. “Hey!” Q protested, brandishing a dishtowel, which intimidated James not at all, “Just you wait! Maybe I’m a prince or something, and when I remember my tragic backstory about how I got here…” Suddenly, Q paused. James felt his own smile slip, and he turned, sensing a change in the air and wondering if perhaps Q’s sense of humor wasn’t taking this so well after all. A glance at Q’s expression, however - vague, suddenly blank, save for eyes that were unfocused and looking at some middle-distance between them - had James tensing with worry. He wasn’t sure that something was wrong, per se, but Q _had_ come here after having a concussion hard enough to give him amnesia, so further complications weren’t out of the question…

“Quincy,” came the head cook’s voice suddenly, “I’ll speak with you for a moment. Now.” 

James had turned instantly at the voice, bristling like it was reflex. The cook - a deceptively motherly woman who actually liked to rap the knuckles of ‘troublemakers’ - had been overseeing other washing-drying pairs across the room at another sink, but now stood by the doorway, expression imperious. James didn’t realize that he’d subtly shifted his body closer to Q’s until Q startled, shook himself, and brushed against James' soapy forearm in the process. Alertness came back to the dark-haired boy’s eyes. “Yes?”

At cook Mayfield’s beckoning, Q went across the room. James himself caught a glare from the cook and smartly turned back to the sink and its load of dishes, outwardly chastised but inwardly hackling still. When James had first come to St. Joseph’s Home, before he’d set up a reputation as the coldest sonofabitch in the place, he’d had his meals stolen or ruined regularly. Being a pragmatic boy already, and in fact quite used to losing his food to others, he’d done what he’d always done: steal more. Cook Mayfield, however, had been slightly more sharp-eyed - and vindictive - than the people James had stolen food from in the past. James no longer had to sneak into her kitchens in the dead of night just to take the edge off his hunger, but he’d been labeled an inveterate thief by then, and Mayfield had a long memory.

Now, as James cleaned another plate thoroughly but slowly, he tuned out the noises of other dishes clattering and instead focused on the squeak of Q’s shoes on the tiled floor, and then the cook’s harsh voice, which always carried. 

James missed the first bit, as someone clattered a handful of silverware from sink to drying rack. But what his ears caught next had him hunching over the sink, jaw tightening and knuckles whitening under the hot water. He’d just barely caught cook Mayfield’s solemn intonation, “...You’re a nice boy, Quincy, so if you know what’s good for you, don’t hang around that one.”

Q said something; his softer voice was harder to catch, but it sounded interrogative. 

“Because he’s trouble,” Mayfield was quick to answer. She said it so easily, the same way that you’d say: the ocean is wet, the sky is blue, happy birds fly, and bad dogs bite. She felt the need to add, “He’s got _habits_, child.” The word ‘habits’ was said like some sort of shameful disease, and James ground his teeth together harder, the anger in him growing so hot that it made his shoulders shake with holding it in. What really burned, though, was the knowledge that there wasn’t a fucking thing he could do about it. Cook Mayfield wasn’t even saying things that were terribly shocking - any one of the staff would be likely to nod along and confirm her words, that James was all trouble, and not a good role model. To be truthful, James couldn’t really argue with them either. The anger turned sullen and cold in his gut at the realization. 

Just as Bond was shutting out the conversation, however, Q’s piqued tone dragged him back. In fact, James almost turned around, so unexpected was the sudden fervor in Q’s voice. He still didn’t catch all of it, but the blond-haired orphan heard enough to get quite a surprise: “...Been really nice to me! How can you _say_ that about James!?” Q’s voice sharpened enough that even the noisier dishwashers started to turn. James could see them out of the corner of his eye, but he had to just imagine what kind of face the cook was wearing - he didn’t dare turn and draw attention to the fact that he was eavesdropping. Q went on, sounding so incredibly defensive that James felt something warm curl up and rest behind his breastbone, “You must have James mixed up with someone else. You _must_.”

Perhaps it was the way that Q was growing increasingly frantic, or perhaps it was because cook Mayfield hadn’t planned on this conversation drawing attention (as it most definitely was). Either way, instead of trying to chastise or change the mind of the little twig of a boy in front of her, she simply ordered sternly, “Back to work - all of you! You, too, Quincy. Now you _remember_ this talk.”

It didn’t sound as though Q replied to that, but he came _right_ back to James. It seemed like a very purposeful snub, and while James tried to radiate calmness as if he’d heard nothing, he found a smile stretching his mouth as he glanced at his scrawny companion out of the corner of his eye. Q was downright glowering, and it was at once ridiculously cute and shatteringly heart-warming. 

“I don’t like her,” Q growled succinctly, lifting up a dish and beginning to furiously dry it. 

“And here I thought you liked everyone,” drawled James back. He got into the rhythm of washing a glass that looked to have had orange juice pulp somehow smeared inside and out. 

Q shot him a little unamused look, then replied, unaware that James had heard almost every word, “She was maligning your character.”

“How do you know the word ‘maligning’?”

“_How_ do you not care that- that _terrible woman_-?” Q was clearly struggling with the urge to use fouler language, but ultimately was too proper to call Cook Mayfield a bitch. “-Is lying about you?!”

James' good mood was dampened, just a bit. His smile remained, even though it became more melancholy as he watched his own hands beneath the soapy water. “Maybe because she’s not lying,” he countered without rancor. He immediately heard Q suck in a breath - inflating up like an angry puffer fish - to argue, and cut the smaller boy off by lifting one of his hands out of the water. He showed Q the back of it, the discoloration around his knuckles. Some of it was healing, but flushed raw and red by the hot water, it looked fresh and new. He also had scars from the fights he’d been in, the fights he’d survived. Q held his breath, silent, and just stared with a puzzled line appearing between his brows. “These kinds of knuckles don’t come from being a nice person,” he warned solemnly, and then stood silently. Awaiting judgment. 

Some self-destructive part of Bond was both expecting and desiring Q to suddenly turn away from him - disgusted or afraid. He was braced for it, like a fall into an open grave, and therefore it felt like a punch to the chest when the expected didn’t happen at all. Instead, the eyes behind those glasses narrowed, became pugnaciously determined, and looked up from Bond’s brawler hand to his eyes - with possibly the most stubborn expression that James had ever seen on a person. “You. Are not. A bad. Person. A bad person would have beaten me up, like… like those others were going to do,” Q stated with remarkable ferocity for a boy his size. The recollection of his past twenty-four hours made Q’s lip quiver for a moment, but he regained control of himself and then pushed James' hand back into the water to signal the conversation closed. 

Because James' life had taught him to recover like a cat, he quickly went back to work, mentally burying himself in the task of appearing normal: consciously loosening his shoulders, realigning his features, washing the next dish neither more quickly nor more slowly than was usual. But he couldn’t help stealing glances at Q, staring at the dark-haired head that didn’t even come up to his shoulder, and admitting that he had no response at all to what Q had just said. 

~^~

By the time the breakfast dishes were all squared away, it was, ironically, almost time for lunch. Bond and Q (and the other dishwashers) just had time to file out as the cooking got under way. Cook Mayfield was at the door as they left, and James made sure to cast his most charming smile her way - just to fuck with her. James nearly choked on his own tongue mid-smile, however, as Q surprised him yet again. The dark-haired kid had scurried to his other side at about the same time James decided to play the young gentleman, and it was a simple fact that James just wasn’t used to that kind of bodily contact. He was used to the extreme, sharp, shocking impact of blows in a fight (or, before he’d learned to defend himself, in a beating), or no contact at all. Now, though, he had Q’s right side pressed against his left, knobby shoulder and elbow briefly kneading his arm as Q squeezed in between James and the wall and tried to walk there. 

If this were a fight - and in James' opinion, everything here was - then Q had rather definitively chosen a side. The fact that it was James' side was so novel that the blue-eyed boy in question had no idea what to do about it. All he knew was that he had something growing and swelling in his chest like a supernova, and he didn’t know whether it was going to crack his ribs open and kill him, or turn him into something different. Something maybe better. 

James wasn’t a talker unless he wanted something from someone, but Q didn’t seem to mind. Once they were out of the kitchen, Q soon began to fill the silence again. He seemed determined to vocalize every bit of knowledge in his head, no matter how strange or untethered it was. It seemed to Bond that Q was afraid that he’d lose that knowledge just like he’d lost his entire history, if he didn’t somehow make it audible and real somehow. James also recalled the way that Q had become strangely silent right before cook Mayfield had interrupted - the story of the lost prince had ended before it began, with Q’s eyes glazing over. 

Just as James was thinking that, Q halted mid-narrative again and also stopped walking. Alarmed, James halted where he and Q had just started to approach the dining hall - best to get in line early, rather than fight over scraps at the end of the endless string of St. Joseph’s brats. When he glanced over, however, Q hadn’t lost his focus. If anything, he was more focused, eyes looking sharply ahead of them while his lips pursed until they whitened. James followed his line of sight on instinct, and it took only a second to pick out Vesper at the head of the line. By this point, Q had started to shrink into himself, looking tentative and even smaller than he already was. 

“I… uh…” Q tried to start talking again awkwardly, looking between the all-too-familiar bully in the room ahead and James, who was watching him unreadably. “I think I’m not hungry,” he attempted to lie, with no success whatsoever. Even without the tremor in his voice, Q’s body language and the way his eyes soon started to dart about for escape routes gave him away. After having dealt with Q at his brightest for the past hours and a half, it was almost physically painful to see Q retreating inside of himself again. It was… like watching a snail retreating into its shell, only Q had only barely begun to grow a shell to begin with. Q was a novice at survival, and his desperate attempts at avoiding these new dangers was like a sharp pricking to Bond's heart.

The blond-haired boy made a decision in an instant. Taking hold of Q’s shoulder, he steered them away from the growing throng of children, into a nearby alcove that lead to a maintenance closet. “Stay here,” James said and, with a press of his hands to push Q just out of sight, returned to the lunch-line. 

It took a bit of time, but Q was still safe and sound - and exactly where James had left him - when the older boy returned with a tray of food. Q’s eyes got big from what looked to be a mixture of surprise and avarice, and it was like watching a dormouse scurry out of its hole when James' arrival signaled safety. There were still a lot of boys and girls around, though, many of them weighing the pros and cons of taking someone else’s meal rather than waiting in line to get their own. James knew; he’d been one of those opportunists before. “I’ve got a better idea than eating here. Tuck that into your pocket,” James suggested quietly. He’d purposefully picked out easily portable food, and in fact had a bit more hidden on his person right now. After all, St. Joseph’s Home wouldn’t abide by gluttons - so the only way James was now carrying enough food for two growing boys was because he had a lot more than what was on the tray. Now, with an idea in mind, he oversaw a quick hiding of more food on Q’s person, so that they could leave the bulky tray behind. “Come on.” Bond would have liked to say that he then trotted off without looking back to see if Q would follow, but that would have been a lie (he glanced back after no more than two steps, just in time to see a puzzled but game Q trotting behind him). 

“Where are we going?” the smaller boy pushed his glasses up his nose and asked. He had to scurry every three steps because his legs were shorter than James'. Bond didn’t slow down, but kept a constant watch to make sure he didn’t lose his younger companion. 

Feeling a bit cagy, James kept scanning their surroundings. He answered obliquely, “Somewhere that we can eat without any vultures. I can keep people from getting ideas about _my_ lunch, but yours…” James shook his head, but noted appreciatively that they were leaving all of the other kids behind. “I can only break so many noses.”

Q grew contrite at the reminder. “I don’t want you to get into trouble because of me,” he whispered softly.

James still heard him. “I would have gotten into trouble one way or another, eventually,” James shrugged off Q’s words before they could get a proper grip on his heartstrings. “May as well get in trouble for a good cause.” A ‘good cause’ had never mattered before, but Q didn’t know that, and James didn’t say. By now, the building around them felt practically deserted. Everyone was being drawn to the food like ants to sugar, making it easy for James to let them out into the backyard. It was a pleasant day - overcast but decently warm. Valiant grass barely surviving the tromping of many young feet painted their surroundings, ending in the garden to the left and a stone wall all the way around. The old wall was taller than James' head, and he was fixated on it now. “Hurry up,” he coaxed, jogging straight over to where one creamy, chipped stone gaped between its cemented brethren. There would eventually be some other kids that came out here to eat, with the weather out here nicer than the cramped atmosphere in the dining hall, so James planned to have himself and Q far from here before they got company. Pockets still full of food, James pushed the toe of his shoe into the crack and vaulted upwards. From much practice, he was able to catch the upper edge with ease, using the last of his momentum to drag himself upwards. 

Within seconds, James was sitting atop the wall. From here, St. Joseph’s Home still loomed to the south, but to the north, there was just rolling hills and grass rising up into lazy almost-mountains in the distance. 

It took a moment for James to pull himself back from just breathing and staring out over all that undemanding space - recollecting that he wasn’t alone as he usually was. Swiveling his head with a flush of embarrassment touching his ears, James looked down to see Q standing forlornly at the base of the wall. “James, I can’t reach,” Q said, in a tremulous voice that said he was afraid James would leave him down there. In the seconds that James had been lost in thought, doubt had sunk into Q’s mind, and James felt immediately guilty. 

Swiveling around with more agility than most boys his age had, James got his belly balanced on the wall. It wasn’t comfortable, but it allowed him to reach down with both hands. “I’m not leaving you,” he grunted in the most put-upon voice he could manage, rolling his eyes for good measure even as he wriggled his fingers beckoningly, “Grab on, quick now.” Relief washed over Q’s face, and soon Bond’s tough hands were gripping smaller, softer ones. It took a bit of doing, but by main strength alone - and a bit of leveraging, and a bit of Q climbing up Bond’s arms and shoulders - James was able to get them both atop the stone wall. Q made a little noise of exhilaration, and it was with some secret pride that James watched Q get his first good look at the empty land on the other side. 

“Wow,” was all the younger boy said, suitably awed. When James smiled back at him and then leapt off the wall into the plush grass on the other side, however, Q made a scandalized look reminiscent of a housecat being asked to go out in the rain. “What are you doing?”

James was really grinning now, wild and tricksome. “Going somewhere safe to eat - I told you that,” he teased. 

Q kicked his feet against the wall and looked down nervously at the distance between himself and the ground. “I’m going to break my ankle,” he said with a sort of sullen resignation that had James chuffing out a laugh instantaneously. 

“No, you’re not, come on,” James argued, coming back to the base of the wall and reaching up. He was able, from here, to grip Q’s ankle, which made the smaller boy squeak and cling to the wall harder. Bond gave him a look from beneath one raised eyebrow. “I’m not going to pull you off,” he stated bluntly. He just gave the ankle in his possession a reassuring squeeze instead and let go. “I just wanted you to see that it’s not that far - I jumped down, didn’t I?”

“You’re bloody bigger than me and you know it.”

“There’s lots of moss. It’ll be a soft landing.”

“If I fall flat on my face, you mean. After breaking an ankle.”

It was quite a turnabout for James to be the optimistic one, and he sighed dramatically and rolled his eyes again. “I’ll catch you,” he offered grudgingly. He’d never thought he’d hear himself offering to help another person, but then again, he never thought that he’d hear a total amnesiac defending him after only a handful of positive encounters. Q was different, and that was why Bond was not only willing to break his fall, but also eager to show the smaller boy the only place on earth so far where James felt _free_. 

Q was eyeing him uncertainly still, but James could see by his face that he was giving in. “Hurry up, before someone sees you sitting on the wall like a lark,” James egged him on. 

That caused Q to look at him even more keenly. “Wait… are we not supposed to be out here?” he asked, suspicious now.

James glanced away in a brief moment of guilt. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt all that much guilt, much less showed it, but with Q it felt like it morals meant something. “Technically,” he hedged, “no one has said that I _can’t_.”

“Have you asked?” Q deadpanned now.

“No.”

Instead of taking that as a deal-breaker, Q huffed and looked briefly skyward, before scooting his arse to the edge of the wall. As he leaned forward, sharp young features tense with concentration and determination, he asked, “And you’re sure you can catch me?”

James reached his arms up expectantly in answer. 

And, just like that, Q decided to trust him, and leapt down. 

As promised, Q didn’t break an ankle. James caught him clumsily but effectively, more guiding him to the ground than anything else, and Q’s little exhale of surprise was puffed against James' chest as the smaller boy overbalanced. For a second, Q clung onto him for dear life, then seemed to realize that the ground was there again, all mossy and stable. “You good?” James checked, just in case. As he noted Q’s alert gaze starting to scan around them, looking more and more curious, the older boy grinned. “No broken bones?”

“Very funny,” Q shoved James' chest. The older boy swayed back and let his smaller companion think that he’d moved him. 

Relaxed now that they were both officially outside of St. Joseph’s, James found smiling easier, so he kept smirking as he turned to lead the way further afield. People could still see - and hear - them from here, and James knew a shallow glen where it was easy to pretend the rest of the modern world didn’t exist. He said as much. “It’s about a five minute walk, but the going’s easy,” he assured. 

Q just nodded. Now that they were out on their own, James didn’t feel the need to hurry anymore, and slowed his pace to match Q’s, so the smaller boy was keeping up. A light breeze played with Q’s hair, tossing the dark forelock up and back from his brow. It revealed the fresh scar - no stitches now - that had no doubt led to Q’s present state of memory loss. “Do you come out here often?” the smaller boy asked, curious as ever. 

And, for once, James felt like joining in the conversation. “When I can. I’m supposed to work in Livingston, so it’s a bit harder to get away.” ‘_But also more necessary_,’ James added mentally, feeling how the monotonous work as a grocer weighed him down like stones to the bottom of a pond. With every step he took now, he felt lighter, less… less like a tightened fist and more like an open hand. He felt a lot like he’d imagine a large bird would after being let out of a skin-tight cage, feathers slowing ruffling out and wings giving a tentative stretch. Perhaps that was why he went on with a rare burst of candidness, “If working as a grocer is my lot in life, I’d rather live out here permanently.”

Q looked a bit startled from where he was maneuvering a tiny hillock of rocks that James was bypassing to one side. It momentarily put them at eye-level, even as Q’s eyebrows disappeared beneath his ridiculous fall of hair and he said, “I think you’d starve.”

Bond stopped walking and allowed a smug smile onto his face. “No, I wouldn’t.”

“How?”

Now the conversation was getting on trickier footing, covering ground that James didn’t talk about with people anymore. But the cool air was loosening up his lungs and his tongue both, so when he inhaled, he answered without only a slight pause on the exhale, “My father - my birth-father, before he died - was a hunter, and did some trapping, too. I was eleven when he and my mother died, so I was old enough to remember a few things.” James shrugged, trying to make it seem like he spoke of these things easily, like saying ‘died’ didn’t burn his insides up even now. He used to feel loss, and pain, but now he mostly felt anger. They’d died and left him, and look what the world had made of James Bond then? “I’ve practiced out here, too.”

For a moment, it had looked like Q would ask about this parents. Just as James braced himself for the overly sympathetic questions, however, Q got distracted by his last sentence and involuntarily skittered down off the rocks. Of course, Bond was taking up the only real space at the base of those rocks, so Q nearly took his legs right out from under him. “Sorry! Sorry,” Q piped, as they both regained themselves. Still all but standing on James' toes, those avidly curious hazel eyes looked up at James' face. “But you’re serious? You’re really hunted out here?”

“Trapped, not hunted,” James amended, and after an unexpected - but almost pleasant - moment of intermingled pride and shyness, James began to explain how one went about making a snare for small game. He left out how many times he’d failed to get it right, instead letting his ego get the better of him a bit. It was almost intoxicating, the way Q watched him avidly, becoming the perfect listener. The smaller boy grimaced a little as James got into the gorier details of skinning a rabbit, but to be fair, the first time James that done that, he’d botched the job and vomited. He left that part of the story out, too, but still felt deeply pleased with himself - Q looked awed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No matter how many times I re-read the part about Q saying he can't get up the wall, my heart still tugs... BEBE-BIRD Q SO SMOL
> 
> Also, the ever-wonderful [Lilywrite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilywrite/pseuds/Lilywrite) made some breathtakingly adorable art for this chapter (or at least for Q and James getting over the wall to retreat out onto the moors). Check it out and give her all of your love: [here](https://www.instagram.com/p/B_1tqsEDp8G/)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James tries to self-sabatage himself some more - and Q continues to respond with loyal cuddliness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a side note, drinking ages are mentioned - Q mostly says that James isn't old enough to drink because Q doesn't even know how old Jame is to begin with, and because Q is a Dust Bunny of Innocence. 
> 
> Also, another friend is made...

“Does anyone back at St. Joseph’s Home know you can do all of that?” Q asked, watching James so intently that he tripped and nearly fell over a dip in the grass. He recovered, still all gangly limbs. 

James answered instantly, “God, no. No one even really knows I come out here.”

“Oh.” Q looked puzzled. James took pity on him to explain. 

“Look, Q, I’m not the most upstanding citizen at St. Joseph’s, all right? I do a helluva lot of things that no one knows about.” 

Q didn’t seem deterred. “Like what?” he chirped, curious. 

It was tempting to point out to Q that when James said ‘things that no one knows about,’ that included other kids like Q. Glancing at those big, interested, bespectacled eyes, however, James couldn’t bring himself to do it. He sucked in a breath, looked upwards at the overcast sky, and tried to find words to explain things. He didn’t really know whether he _wanted_ to scare Q off - a self-sabotaging impulse - or if he wanted to lie like a dog so Q would keep thinking that he, James Bond, was a good guy. Words started tumbling out of the blond boy’s mouth before he could decide which of the impulses to go for. “Well, I sneak out here whenever I can.” Q knew that already, and nodded, skipping over a gnarled old root protruding like a dirty bone from the grass. “And I go into town - they know I go into town, but when I’m there, I end up in pubs.”

Q’s nose wrinkled. “Why?” 

The clear disinterest Q had in pubs made James look at him out of the corner of his eye, smiling slyly. “Where else am I supposed to get alcohol?”

Immediately Q’s eyes got huge, his tone scandalized. “You’re not old enough to drink!” he accused. 

“Close enough,” James defended without caring. In fact, he felt strangely careless right now, as if nothing could touch or bother him. Q was no threat to him - certainly not physically, and James found that he trusted the smaller boy not to rat him out verbally. Still amused by Q’s expression, James kept grinning and talking, “It’s not usually the alcohol that I’m looking for, though - it’s a good game of poker. Or pool.”

Now Q was looking suspicious, as he continued to keep up with James and watch him when he wasn’t forced to mind his own footing. “I’m not sure I should ask why you like those things.”

“Ask,” James challenged. 

“Is there any chance that you like those things just because they’re fun?” Q already sounded like he knew the answer to that question, his tone sounding martyred and resigned in a way that made laughter bubble up James' throat again. 

“Sure they’re fun,” the older boy acquiesced, then added, “They’re also a great way to cheat people out of their money.”

“James!” 

The boy’s indignant yelp was so funny that James laughed out loud, and he was able to actually say his next sentence with levity instead of the bitterness that would’ve usually been wrapped around it, “Starting to reconsider hanging around with me? I’m not actually a nice person.”

It was unsurprising that the answer to that was silence. What was Q supposed to say? The open spaces and the clean air felt too good for James to be overly bothered by that, even though a sad little voice at the back of his head was telling him that he’d ruined it - that he’d found something good and, as always, he’d gone out of his way to fuck it up. James was the very definition of a dog that bit the hand that fed him. He’d had foster parents who had even told him so.

But when Q spoke up again, it was with slow and careful words that James did not expect: “I don’t think that actions always make a person what they are. Being a cheat and being a bad person aren’t necessarily the same thing.”

James didn’t know how to take that. He knew that the words didn’t make sense and that the infinitely gentle tone was something that he could barely remember hearing in the most buried of his memories. He knew that the way Q spoke stabbed deep into him like a lance into a boil, and he didn’t like the pus that came out. Reflexively, he lashed out, words hardening even as his throat got tight, “You’ve got an awful lot of insight into people for an amnesiac kid who can’t even remember his own name.” 

The instant the words were out of his mouth, James felt like a right bastard. He immediately stopped walking and dragged a hand down over his face, scavenging through his head for any manners that he’d ever picked up through his life. It took a beat, but he managed to find words that would start to express just how very much he regretted what he’d just said. “Fuck. Sorry. That… That was uncalled for.” The final sentence felt awkward, like marbles in his mouth, because he didn’t think that he’d ever said a sentence like that before - but he’d heard other people say it. Unable to bring himself to turn around and look (Q had also stopped walking, and was a pace behind him), the older boy stood where he was, holding his breath and wondering if he could find more things to say that would fix this. It wasn’t necessarily that James was bad at apologizing - on the contrary, he’d gotten incredibly skilled at arse-kissing over the years, and that included a lot of practice in faking remorse and acquiring forgiveness in whatever fashion seemed easiest and most effective at the moment. But now, with Q, he found himself in the unfamiliar situation of wanting to apologize _and mean it_.

He honestly expected to hear Q stomp off. St. Joseph’s was still in view, so the kid was unlikely to get lost, but if he decided to storm back then he’d probably twist an ankle or something on the way back, and he couldn’t get over the wall on his own - so James would have to follow him, which would be bloody awkward. Instead, however, after about the longest five seconds in existence, the susurrus of grass against shoes came closer instead of farther away, and James turned in blank astonishment to find the boy at his side again. The light breeze tossed messy waves of dark hair around Q’s fine-featured face, held out of his eyes seemingly by nothing but the frames of his glasses, and he was smiling tentatively. “See, if you were really an awful person, you wouldn’t have apologized,” Q said with his perfect diction and perhaps just a touch of superiority.

James felt something unclench and relax in his chest, and it was like unfolding all of his limbs after having been confined for hours. He actually exhaled sharply enough for it to be audible, and just blinked for a moment, even as Q’s little smile spread into something almost cheeky. “You little minx,” James accused, uncomfortable with the sudden warmth in his chest but unable to deny how relieving it felt. He started walking again.

Q wasn’t done yet, and added with a posh little sniff as he skipped to keep up, “And for your information, I do remember my own name.”

“Oh?”

“My name,” said the boy with grave certainty, “is Q.”

Bond didn’t even consider arguing with him.

~^~

They ate together, out there on the moors. There was a moss-softened depression in the earth, just far enough away from St. Joseph’s that James didn’t feel its presence breathing down his neck. Q seemed to love it, and James was unaccountably more chuffed than when he’d brought home his first meagre pay-check. Eventually Q had stopped exploring the little space and had instead come to join James in sitting beneath a small, gnarled tree. Unashamedly leaning against James' knee, Q contentedly munched his way through half of their impromptu picnic. 

It was a perfect afternoon, and James had never been so reluctant to return to St. Joseph’s Home. He’d had the urge to run away before, but now it was like a monster rearing its head up in him - and desiring that he take Q with him, too. 

Perhaps that was why James said, after they’d finished eating and had just been sitting and staring up at the ever-shifting leaves and clouds above for awhile, “Want to come in to town with me? No one will miss us until supper, maybe longer.”

James had been slouched back against the thick growth of moss at the tree’s trunk; Q had been stretched out on the grass next to him, right shoulder and elbow pressed against Bond’s thigh. The head of fluffy dark hair turned so that the boy could look up at him with big, curiously blinking eyes. “Sure,” Q said with surprisingly little hesitancy. 

So instead of going back to St. Joseph’s, they went into the adjacent town instead, Q like a collie at James' side, never straying. James really wasn’t much of a tour guide, but Q apparently hadn't seen any of the town yet, so he was easily entertained by just about anything James decided to point out. Of course, most of the places that the older boy actually frequented weren’t exactly the kinds of locals that nice kids like Q frequented, but it was hard to feel ashamed when Q had already made it clear that he liked James, very much, just the way he was. 

There was something addictive about that. 

Maybe that was why James pulled Q into one of the more reputable places he frequented, one of the little clubs that mixed gambling and food just enough so that clientele of all ages could technically enter - although technically younger folks like Q and James should have stuck to the bangers and mash. Instead, James managed to get himself into a card-game.

And that was how James learned that Q could count cards.

“How is that _cheating_?” Q asked for at least the third time, still struggling with the concept as they walked back home. 

“You were counting the cards, Q.”

“So... what? I’m supposed to ignore the statistical likelihood of-?” Q was just working himself up into a rant when someone stepped out of the alleyway ahead of them. 

Then a second somebody. 

It was getting late - St. Joseph’s would just be sitting down to supper, and maybe someone had noticed James or Q’s absence by now - and the streets were emptying out as everyone found someplace to eat and end their day. That meant that there weren’t a lot of witnesses, and right now James was eyeing the postures of the individuals before them, and realizing that they were possibly in a bit of trouble. They were faced now with two young men, older than James but with a predatory look he understood. 

Q had fallen silent without being told, but James still put a hand on his shoulder, sliding subtly in front of him without even thinking about the motion. 

“So, what are two young chaps like yourselves doing out on your own this fine evening?” one of the men, taller than James but skinnier, said pleasantly but with a too-broad smile on his face. 

“Just heading home,” James replied, truthfully. He schooled his features into neutrality, not wanting to give away anything that might be seen as weakness. The problem was, the two men’s eyes kept sliding past him to Q, and they had the looks of wolves about them - slathering, hungry. When one of the men stepped forward without warning, James did the same, drawing himself up to his full height and making it clear that he had a spine with some steel in it. He met slightly surprised eyes with a hard, warning look. 

“Oh-ho-ho! Look’s like we’ve got a real protective one here, don’t we, Bruce?” the second man, taller _and_ broader than James, chuckled to his friend in response to the look in James' eyes. 

Behind him, James could feel Q’s fingers hooking worriedly in his back pocket; he reached back and unhooked them gently, knowing that he’d have to move soon. He kept hold of the smaller boy’s hand for a moment, giving it a squeeze, trying to relay, ‘_It’ll be all right_.’ 

The bigger of the two men was circling a little bit, which was a bad sign, all the while smiling and talking in a way that also had James worried. “Your dark-haired friend there is a real pretty little thing. Good thing he’s got a strapping young bloke like you to protect him, eh?”

“We could walk them home,” the other one, Bruce, suggested playfully, “Give them a bit more _protection_, you know?”

“We’re just,” Q repeated this time, squeezing closer to James' left elbow, “going home.” James went ahead and tucked an arm around him, also giving the younger boy’s nape a quick squeeze to hopefully get him to be quiet. What Q needed was to not attract notice right now, to be as invisible as possible in James' shadow. James eased both himself and Q over until they had a dumpster at their left, protecting that flank at least. It was messy, overflowing with refuse and smelly, but Q didn’t argue about being pressed near it with Bond in front of him. 

Just when it looked like things were going to get chancy and James was balling his hands into ready fists, another voice broke the quiet, and all heads turned to another connecting street, “Come on, now - does it look like these two young gentleman have any money?” Another young man stepped into view, hair blond like James but longer, more tousled, and eldritch-green eyes that were full of humor now as he swaggered into view. James immediately relaxed and fought a smile. The two older men looked confused and wary. 

The newcomer just grinned broadly and spread out his hands, berating, “I mean, it’s going to be a pretty sad mugging if you get nothing out of it, right?”

“Alec,” James said, warmly, catching some of the fire-bright humor in those green eyes. The newcomer, just a few years James' senior but already heavier with muscle, looked over at him and winked, then focused back on their would-be attackers. Alec also had a mobile out in his hand. 

“It’d be a shame if I had to call someone,” the green-eyed boy said, faux-regretful, wagging the phone in his hand and walking idly closer to where James and Q stood. Then Alec’s smile got ugly. “I’d much rather solve the problem myself.”

Now that he had back-up, James stopped playing a purely defensive game and stepped forward a bit, too. Now he and the newcomer were just a pace apart, and side-by-side. They were still not quite as seasoned as the aggressors in front of them, but Alec was very nearly as big as the second man, and James himself had more muscle that Bruce. Plus, both blond youths looked entirely too eager to fight now, hands easy and open at their sides but weight evenly distributed between their feet. “We could do both,” James offered to the audience at large, playing along and affecting a tone of nonchalance. He closed one fist. “Bloody a few noses and _then_ call the appropriate authorities.”

Bruce and his companion clearly hadn’t been expecting prey that bit back. This wasn’t a large enough town to support real thugs of any quality, and having been faced with a bit of opposition, these two men folded. “Easy there, now, what gave you the idea that we were here to mug anybody?” Bruce said, lifting his hands placatingly.

His larger friend followed suit: “We were just talking - saw these two lads on their own was all. Just checking that they were going to make it home all right.”

“We’ll be _fine_,” James assured in a low, steel-on-steel voice. His smile was gone, leaving only the knife-like glint in his eyes. 

Having been assured that their presence was not only not needed, but not wanted (and liable to be met with fists), the two troublemakers beat a swift retreat. Alec and James were left to sigh out quiet breaths, exchanging speaking-looks that said rather clearly how happy each was to see the other. And, perhaps, admitting that this could have gone a lot worse if they hadn’t been facing off against cowards - physically, it would have been close. The look lasted only seconds, however, before James turned his attention to more pressing matters, pivoting on his heel and immediately going back to Q. Alec turned more slowly, but both blond youths still managed to turn in time to see that Q was clutching a piece of glass in his hand, which he dropped once James got nearer. It was briefly a rather unsettling sight: despite being about as physically threatening as a dust-bunny, Q had looked quite ready to defend himself in a mean and wholehearted way. James was equal parts disturbed and impressed, but hid both of those responses in favor of just getting his hands on Q’s shoulders, reassuring himself that the kid was still there and all right. 

“We’re good now, Q,” he assured, watching the relief flush through the kid’s expressive face. In fact, Q exhaled loudly and even sagged a bit.

He almost forgot about Alec until the other boy spoke from behind him: “Got yourself a sidekick, Jamesy? That’s new.”

James turned, and tried not to twitch in surprise as Q instantly glomped onto his side - not quite grabbing him, but standing so close that he was literally under his arm. It staggered James a bit, but he still managed to make introductions, “Alec, this is… This is Q. Q, this is Alec Trevelyan.” He added after an unavoidable pause, because these weren’t words that he often said, and never seemed to get used to, “He’s a friend.” 

Q looked highly suspicious, and maybe that was because Alec grinned a lot like a wolf: lots of charm, but all teeth. Alec was dashingly handsome, and already had a reputation for sleeping around - he also liked to frequent the underage fight-clubs, however, which was how he and James had met. Alec was the only person that James had ever agreed to ally with, when the prize-money for a two-on-two fight had looked too good to resist. It had been a risk, trusting someone to watch his back, but James hadn’t regretted it. He went on to give Q a bit more information, in the hopes that the kid would relax, “Alec’s folks live on the far side of town, but he’s all right.”

“You say that like parents are a liability,” Alec snorted.

“Aren’t they?”

“Touché,” Alec admitted with an easy roll of his shoulders. It was hard to believe most of the time, but Alec actually came from money - but his parents were also about as interested in him as a cat was interested in laundry detergent, which perhaps explained Alec’s wild side. One of these days, his folks would notice that he’d gone completely feral, at which point they’d be left asking what the hell had happened. It was probably already too late, though: Alec didn’t fight for the extra cash like James did, but instead seemed to come for the adrenalin rush. James understood the allure. 

Somewhere during the brief exchange, Q had apparently decided that Alec wasn’t going to eat him alive, and had un-stuck himself from Bond’s side. Eyes still transparently suspicious, the little boy still stepped two cautious steps away from Bond and closer to Alec, enough so that he could stretch out a hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Trevelyan,” he said. 

James had started to get used to Q’s precise diction, but Alec - who spent so much time with people other than his parents that even his speech didn’t give away his good breeding - was clearly surprised. He barked out a quick laugh, but nonetheless took Q’s hand. As he shook it, Alec said to James over Q’s head, “You’ve got yourself a real posh one here, James. Where’d you find him?”

“He’s at the Home with me,” James admitted. He didn’t like to talk much about St. Joseph’s. Or his past. Or himself. Really, it was a miracle that Alec stuck around him, considering how stingily James gave of himself to their friendship. As Q slipped free of Alec’s hand and immediately returned to him, James felt an impulsive wash of protectiveness again, and touched Q’s shoulder when it got near enough. “He’s new,” he added awkwardly when he saw that Alec’s quick green eyes had caught the exchange of physical contact. Q clearly hadn’t shaken off the touch - and James himself was not a touching type of person unless he was putting on an act and trying to charm someone. This wasn’t that, and Alec clearly knew it. 

“Uh-uh. And his name’s _Q_?” Alec’s voice said that he wasn’t convinced that this was the whole story, but he was smart enough to drop it. As much as Alec came across as a rogue, he was really more of a saint for putting up with James' secretive, standoffish nature. It was ironic, really, that James was more loquacious and exuberant with strangers than he was with friends - like a peacock fanning out its tail for passing hens, but never bothering for family. James could be the life of the party if he wanted to, but it was all for show. The reality was much more iron-edged and reserved, built by a life that had taken all that wasn’t tough and broken it. Somehow, Alec seemed to understand that. 

Saving James from coming up with an answer, the youngest boy stepped forward again pugnacious and maintained, “Yes. That’s my name.” He further defended, “I may not remember much, but I remember that.”

Deciding that there wasn’t any way around avoiding Q’s amnesia now, James sighed and reached forward, hesitating only for a moment before touching Q’s forehead. When the boy didn’t flinch, James took that as permission to push Q’s hair back, brushing it away with his fingers to reveal the healing wound at Q’s temple. Alec’s eyes widened and then narrowed, frowning now, while James explained, “He took a blow to the head, and no one seems to know where he came from - not even him.” When he saw Q opening his mouth to say a few predictable words, James added to mollify him, “But he knows that his name is Q.” The kid relaxed. James dropped his hand away, silken strands tickling his fingers as Q’s moppish forelock fell back into place. 

Alec and Q just stood and blinked at each other for a moment, both equally off-balance now: Q because he apparently _wasn’t_ universally trusting, and Alec because he’d probably never dealt with an amnesiac before. But, since Alec had also never seen James befriend anyone else before, the green-eyed youth recovered and pulled out a friendly smile. “In that case, the pleasure’s all mine, Q. Any friend of James' is a friend of mine. He’s got great taste.”

“I do not.”

“You like _me_.”

“You’re proving my point.”

The lighthearted bickering continued as all three started walking ahead, heading towards St. Joseph’s Home as the world got darker. Q walked between them, and spent the whole time looking back and forth as if he’d suddenly found himself in the midst of a strange puzzle. At first, he tried to circle around to James' far side, but while Q was more worried about being next to a stranger, James was more worried about Q being less protected - so he slung his right arm across Q’s shoulders to keep him in place with an older boy on either side of him. For a while, the bespectacled kid walked with a disgruntled expression, but soon got used to the arm, if not Alec. They didn’t talk about what had just happened, and most certainly didn’t talk about the fact that Alec was with them as added protection against a repeat performance. Instead the conversation drifted from benign topics to lackadaisical ones: Alec talked about his girlfriends (plural), James mentioned the event of that morning which had culminated in his punching another boy in the nose. Alec laughed uproariously at that one, making Q physically jump at the sudden eruption of sound. 

For a moment, Alec eyed James over the top of Q’s head again, clearly on the verge of asking all sorts of questions: How the hell did James end up eating breakfast with an amnesiac? Why did James care enough about Q to attack someone for him? How had this all happened since Alec last saw James just a week ago, when James usually took an eon to warm up to people, if he warmed up at all? 

Instead of asking, though, Alec merely lifted a hand and ruffled Q’s hair. He ignored the squeak of protest, saying jovially, “Wish I’d been there. Sounds like the makings of a real party!”

Alec could be a real bull in a China-shop sometimes, but like James, a lot of it was just an act. Beneath it, Alec was a lot more intuitive than people generally gave him credit for. Therefore, the green-eyed youth didn’t ask any prying questions even as they reached St. Joseph’s street. Alec stopped there, stuffing his hands in his pockets and looking relaxed despite the yawning dark. “Hey, next time you guys come into town - find me, all right? Don’t make me find you.” His teeth flashed, playful and white. 

James couldn’t contain his wry grin in return. “Count on it,” he promised, and both James and Q waved as Alec turned and ambled off into the night. 

Once Alec had disappeared and James and Q were traversing the last distance to St. Joseph’s (Q going for the main door, James steering him to a less obvious entrance), the younger boy noted up in a wary tone, “He laughs _very_ loudly.” After a pause, he added with more disgruntlement, “And he messed up my hair.”

While Q lifted a hand to pat his hair back down, James gave vent to a laugh that he’d been holding in for a while now. “Q, you didn’t need any help with that,” he informed his fluffy-headed companion. 

Their discussion continued - Q affronted, James amused - as they continued on to St. Joseph’s. The atmosphere was so light and pleasant that James forewent his usual wariness, and therefore misjudged how loud they were being until they were inside and it was too late. 

“And where, pray, have you two been?” 

James froze, humor doused like a match in water, then tensed because of reflexes that had been beaten right into his bones. He had a keen sense for when his person was under threat, and if that sense was triggered even in the slightest, his body primed itself for a fight - and right now, he was more than aware of the danger lurking in that tone. One of the minority of men working at St. Joseph’s Home, Mr. Suthord was a lean, stringy man with a short patience for children in general and James in particular. In Mr. Suthord’s own words, his strictness stemmed from a desire to make all of St. Joseph’s children into proper members of society, but it was probably more accurate to say that Mr. Suthord simply shouldn’t have ever worked with children. 

Greying hair sternly slicked back, Mr. Suthord was still dressed in daytime attire, and it became clear a moment later that he’d been waiting up on purpose. “Bond, I half expected you to run away for good, but how nice of you to join us again,” Mr. Suthord stated flatly, but with a ring to his voice that James didn’t like. Q was shifting his weight uneasily, and James was fighting the urge to curl his hands into fists. He didn’t say anything, knowing from the glint in Suthord’s dark eyes that the man was fishing for a response that he could turn back on James. Lacking any input from James, the older man went on a touch more sharply, “It’s come to my attention that you attacked another boy today, and then proceeded to threaten that poor child’s companions into silence. Is this true?” James still said nothing, this time because he knew it wouldn’t do any good. He’d already been caught sneaking around, and even though James' lying skills were superb, they were no match for the look of utter certainty he could see in Mr. Suthord’s face. 

There was also the fact that it was all true. 

“I’ll take your rebellious, glaring silence as a ‘yes’,” the gaunt man said, “That, on top of sneaking out after hours, and I’m really not impressed. I’m disappointed, Mr. Bond, despite my admittedly low expectations for you.” 

Until this point, Q had been pretty much forgotten. To be fair, he was slightly behind James, his smaller stature and darker hair making him veritably blend into the background. The only light was ambient, from the moon that gazed through the unshuttered windows, and Q might have snuck right back the way they’d come without comment. 

Instead, of course, the younger boy chose that moment to prove that he was a scarily loyal little sod. 

“That other boy was threatening me - James was protecting me,” Q piped up, his voice surprisingly firm despite its boyish pitch. James actually jumped, head swiveling around even as the bespectacled kid stepped around him with the hard expression reminiscent of a calm before a storm. 

“Quincy,” Mr. Suthord proved that he knew Q, even as his eyebrows winged upwards at the unexpected display of protectiveness, “I’m not surprised by Mr. Bond’s behavior, given his track-record, but I expected more of you." Q’s little shoulders got tauter, and James could see at a glance that Q’s fists were now clearly clenched. Good god, Suthord had called him Quincy... “I heard from the cook that she had a talk with you about your choice in companions,” Mr. Suthord ignored Q’s facts, and opened his mouth to go on-

But apparently Q didn’t appreciate having his arguments (or chosen name) ignored. Little body tightening up like a violin string, Q stood to his full (if rather unimpressive) height and said more loudly, “You’re basing all of your conclusions on incomplete if not utterly false information. I’d have been beaten up if James hadn’t-”

“Don’t interrupt me, child.”

“I’m not a child,” Q snapped back, which wasn’t even remotely true, but Q didn’t let that slow him down, “and I’m not impressed by your desire to jump to conclusions about people-”

“Q,” James warned. 

It didn’t even slow the amnesiac down. “-Just because of your own inability to find a better paying job in your field.”

In the shocked silence that followed, Mr. Suthord gaped, and if there had been a bit more light, one could have probably seen the man turn a mottled shade of red. James, for his part, lifted a hand and dragged it down his face with an unsubtle sight. When he looked again, Q hadn’t backed down an inch, and was in fact standing out in front of James now like an insanely territorial terrier, one wrong move away from actually growling. Having someone stand up and defend him was so novel that James honestly had no idea how to react, and just stood there - hand still splayed over the lower half of his face - and stared until Mr. Suthord gave the expected verdict: “Solitary. Now. _Both_ of you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q being Bond's fierce little collie for the day is my favorite thing to write <3


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James and Q get put in solitary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who were hoping that "Solitary" wouldn't exactly be solitary, you're about to get your wish ;) Can't separate the Big Softy from his Guard Mouse!

On a certain level, James was aware that he was strong and skilled enough that a skinny old pole like Mr. Suthord couldn’t force him to go anywhere he didn’t want to go, but memories of being smaller and more vulnerable were still burned into Bond’s memory, and hard to overcome. As he allowed himself to be chivvied into the small room that served as St. Joseph’s favorite means of major punishment, James felt like a poorly healed wound: the injury was gone, but he remembered the pain too clearly to try and move the limb, and scar tissue insisted that he keep limping. 

Then the door closed, and all James could feel was the clawing desire to _get out_. 

The door had opened for long enough to let them in, and now they were in darkness as impenetrable as onyx stone. One small blessing to be such a frequenter of this place, however, was that James had long-since memorized the layout, allowing him to pace into the room without any hesitation. He wore his normal path past the bed on the right-hand side and towards the simple toilet and sink at the back, touching the far wall with a hand before turning back around again. His knee just barely brushed porcelain, reminding him bitterly that St. Joseph's probably only included these amenities because leaving children overnight without access to a toilet and water would probably invite more criticism than St. Joseph’s Home wanted to face. “Bed’s one step forward and to your right,” James informed Q detachedly, his own voice sounding hollow in his ears but heavy in the dark, “Although, for you, that might be two steps. Be careful not to stub your toe on the frame.”

“It’s okay, I know where everything is,” Q’s voice came back, surprisingly light. It was strange to hear another voice in here, and only then did James realize that this was the first time that solitary confinement wasn’t actually solitary. Mr. Suthord had been too furious to really think this through. There was the soft shuffle of Q’s shoes and then the sound of old bed-springs depressing, without any sounds of stubbed toes to be heard. Q explained, “I memorized the room before the door was closed and blocked out all the light.”

James blinked, surprised. As always, the darkness was so cloying that he imagined it brushing against his eyelashes like ink-dark cobwebs. “That was only a few seconds,” he observed.

There was silence that indicated Q was either shrugging, or else this realization had just hit him. Eventually, though, the younger boy replied, “I think I have a photographic memory.”

The revelations with Q never stopped. James wanted to dwell on them (on Q’s photographic memory, on his vast fount of knowledge that included everything but his own past, on the fact that Q was the first person besides Alec to choose James' side when things got tough), but the walls were closing in again, and the darkness felt like a thousand hands touching him. Grunting to show that he’d heard, James went back to pacing, striding past the bed again and this time brushing his fingertips against the door. The room was barely bigger than a closet, longer than it was wide with the bed taking up fully a third of the space. Giving himself a shake like a dog with something on its pelt, James turned and went back again, this time bumping his hip against the sink in his haste. Q must have pulled his legs up into the bed, because James didn’t trip on him.

It was a good three minutes of James stalking back and forth before Q broke the silence again, voice more hesitant than before. “James?”

It felt weird, talking in here, like James didn’t remember how. He had to work his jaw and cast about in his head just to find where the words were hiding, and somehow that scared him. “What?”

“Are you afraid of the dark?”

“No,” James growled back, and pivoted again. In his brief glimpses of this room with the lights on, he’d never paid attention to details, but he was sure that there was a path in the floor - if not worn by him, than surely by others. He followed that path now with restless, almost desperate feet.

He expected Q to question him, to not trust his answer, but surprisingly Q accepted it. After a pause, however, the kid hazarded in a voice that was quiet but more sure, like the susurrus of a dependable wave against a nighttime shore, “But you don’t like closed spaces.” This time, it wasn’t a question.

“I don’t like-” James tried to clumsily correct, even as he gripped the sides of the sink to stop himself from pacing madly again. His tendons strained as he pitted his strength against the porcelain and lost. The blond-haired youth struggled with his words for a second, stubbornly determined to be the one to name this, not Q… even though Q had pretty much hit the nail on the head. “I don’t like not having an exit,” James finally dragged the words out. He felt winded in their absence. It was also a bit shocking to realize that he’d never voiced this fact before, not even to himself - and yet he knew it to be totally true. James was sure that he could live in a thimble so long as he always knew that he had the means to escape it at will. 

Whereas, with this room, he was stuck in it until someone deigned to let him out. Perhaps it was that dependance that he bridled against.

Again, Q accepted that, and it was surprising how strange and relieved that made James feel; in fact, he actually felt some of the tension seeping out from where it was frozen between his shoulder blades like great big blocks of ice. Orphans like James were not often listened to, and James was so used to having people assuming things about him or questioning his opinions that he abruptly wished he could see Q’s face, just to glean some clue as to how this quiet acceptance was able to _exist_. Perhaps James didn’t have a way out of here… but at least he was stuck in here with someone who believed that James knew his own mind. Considering how much of a genius Q obviously was, it was doubly impressive that the younger boy hadn’t gainsaid him, or otherwise told James that his self-assessment was wrong. 

“Thanks,” James found himself saying, the word simply falling out of his mouth. 

The bedsprings shifted and Q made a vaguely bewildered noise that sounded like a kitten with a mouthful of milk. “I beg your pardon?”

“I said thanks.”

“I know you said that. When you’re not switching accents, you have perfect diction,” Q replied pertly and without hesitation, catching James off-guard with the last sentence. “What I want to know is why in the world you’re thanking me.”

James found that he still had the ability to chuckle, and did so, retorting shrewdly, “You’ve been watching me more than I realized if you know that I switch accents.”

“I notice things,” Q said defensively, with a peevish tone in his voice that allowed James to perfectly imagine a pout. The room started to feel a little bit less like a thousand hands touching him, the darkness less malevolent. “Of course I know that you switch accents. Why you do that or how, I haven’t a clue, though.”

“It’s useful. People respect me more if I sound posh - like you sound.”

“You’re changing the subject.”

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” James said in his best upper-crust British voice, and heard a small thump that was no doubt Q rocking his head back against the wall in defeat. A smile tugged at James' mouth, and he padded over until his knees brushed the edge of the bed. He sat down, figuring that he may as well, at least while the urge to pace was temporarily abated.

“You shouldn’t be thanking me for anything,” Q went on, sounding a bit melodramatic but nonetheless sincerely, “After all, I got you into this. You wouldn’t even be stuck in this room if it weren't for me.” A bit more muffled - hands over his face? - Q went on miserably, “I’m sorry.”

“For what? That Suthord’s an arse? He hated me before.”

“Sorry that I can’t fight my way out of a wet paper sack, so you have to stand up for me,” Q mewled back forlornly, and James abruptly realized that Q wasn’t just being a drama-queen, but actually felt terrible. In fact, it sounded like his guilt was driving him near to tears. 

James scooted further onto the bed, following the depression in the old mattress and the direction of Q’s voice until he felt that they were sitting shoulder to shoulder. While the contact felt strange to James, Q didn’t make any attempt to lean away. For a long moment, they sat in silence as James gathered his words, wanting to say this right. Finally, wetting his lips with a quick swipe of his tongue, the blond-haired boy settled on, “Not everyone is strong, Q.” When he heard Q suck in breath to argue, he added more firmly, “Not everyone _has_ to be. We’re all different and...” In a weird, out-body-sort of way, James saw where his own words were unintentionally going, and it was like he could do nothing but listen to himself as he finished softly but clearly, “...And it’s the job of strong people like me to make up for it when others aren’t.” 

The words, like a struck tuning fork, resonated in him, vibrating into corners of himself that he’d never touched before. It felt strange, and unsettling, and… true. He couldn’t understand it, though, and was therefore left to sit where he was and stare off blankly into the dark - wondering what it was about Q that kept bringing these previously hidden parts of himself out into the light. James was a chameleon: around most people, he could be anything he needed to be. Anything they wanted him to be. Yet around one skinny, bespectacled boffin, James was only ever himself - and yet, somehow, he kept showing new colors like a blackbird’s feathers turning in the sun. James was almost too afraid to admit that the glossy colors were beautiful. 

Dragging James out of his revelations was the nudge of Q leaning one poky shoulder more firmly against him. “Thanks,” Q said, in unthinking echo of what James had said earlier. As always, he sounded like he very much meant it. There was something delightfully transparent about Q, even if James logically knew that that kind of openness was a weakness. He should have been showing Q how to hide it, how to cover it up, to grow out of it, but he didn’t want to change him. “So does this mean we’re stuck here all night?”

“Until after breakfast - although since you’re in here, they might let us out in time to get something to eat. You’re cute and cuddly, and they won’t want you to starve.”

“I’m not-!” Q cut himself off, perhaps involuntarily, with an affronted choking sort of noise, then elbowed James clumsily in the dark. In a more controlled voice, Q muttered, “You’re being facetious.”

“I have no idea what that means,” James said blithely. The darkness had ceased to feel so much like the enemy. The room felt larger somehow with another person to share it with; perhaps it was because Q was barely big enough to take up any space. 

“And now you’re playing dumb. Arse.” Another elbow, more of a nudging than a proper jab. 

James chuckled because he had indeed been lying, but unlike most of his life, he was actually quite pleased that Q had noticed. 

After a bit more silence - surprisingly companionable silence, with Q sagging against James' left arm and shoulder like a warm scarecrow - Q yawned audibly and wriggled a little. “I’m going to go to sleep,” he announced, vowels drawn out like he was still mid-yawn. 

“Go ahead,” James replied, “I don’t think I’m going to sleep.” It was the truth; even if the bed wasn’t narrower than their usual bunks, he rarely got much shut-eye in detention here. It was too eerie to wake up and realize that the blackness behind his eyelids was the same as the darkness waiting when he opened them. 

In much the same way that Q accepted everything James said, the younger boy didn’t argue, and was burrowing under the thin blankets almost before James had scooted to the edge of the bed to give him space. Even from there, James soon felt Q’s warm shape stretched out behind him, and it felt surprisingly... comforting. Even when Q started softly snoring. No one was ever this at ease around anyone else in St. Joseph’s, not even those who claimed to be allies, because backstabbing was a way of life amidst this many kids with this many rough histories. Trust was hard to come by. 

But Q had it, and James was swiftly becoming addicted to having that trust shared with him. 

~^~

James did end up catching a few winks, the excitement of the day managing to overcome his restlessness and anxiety about being locked in a small, dark room. After nudging Q’s feet out of the way, the older boy took up a new position at the end of the bed, back against the wall and drifting off to the sensation of Q’s feet coming to rest against his left thigh as the kid relaxed and stretched out again. When exactly Q had taken off his shoes, James had no idea, but he found himself smiling at the sensation of toes kneading his leg before going still. James went still a few minutes later, dozing shallowly. 

Ultimately, they were let out earlier than expected. Mr. Suthord and the headmistress both jerked the door open, peering into the room as if expecting to find a bloodbath or something. Instead, there was just James - still slouched against the wall at the foot of the bed, awake because he’d heard them coming - and Q, both of them alive and only one of them startled. Q had been asleep right up until the noise of the lock rattling, whereas James had heard the furious, hushed speech of the headmistress as she berated Suthord for “putting that sweet child in there with Bond” and “not thinking to tell her until this moment.” While Q startled awake and popped his head out of the blankets like a guileless doormouse fresh out of hibernation, James fought the familiar, ferocious urge to bolt out of there the second he saw freedom. Out of pride, he refused to show how desperate he was, but like always, it took a second to school his features into cool disinterest.

Of course, Q’s gaze (sans glasses; he must have removed them along with his shoes) flashed back to him, and James had the feeling that the younger boy noticed the look of almost panicked yearning before James could hide it. Hopefully Q was nearsighted enough that the glimpse at James' inner self was a blurry one.

“Quincy, are you all right?” the Headmistress had the presence of mind to demand only after a moment of stunned staring. Apparently, the very last thing any of them had expected was the sight of the resident amnesiac coexisting peacefully with the notorious James Bond. 

Q turned back to them to blink owlishly, his hair a dark nimbus around his head. Before answering, he leaned over the side of the bed - where his shoes were, his spectacles folded and tucked neatly into the left shoe. James recalled Q’s claim to having a photographic memory, and realized that maybe the kid really had memorized the layout of the room in a eyeblink. Once his glasses were on, Q looked up at the two adults once again, and told them quite politely that he was fine. 

Both adults looked next to James, gazes wary and suspicious, but the blond-haired boy did nothing but raise one eyebrow. If they really thought that he was such a bastard as to abuse a boy half his size, then at least they should have had the guts to accuse him out it loud; James was not impressed. “I’m fine, too, by the way,” the words veritably slid out of his mouth, slick as a dagger off a whetstone. He saw the adults flinch and grimace, even as they realized that there was no stopping James from finishing, “I figured that the chances of Q being a serial killer was pretty slim, but with an amnesiac, you gotta be careful, yeah?” 

While Q sat up and twisted around to fix James with a look that said James had gone off the deep end, James kept up his unblinking eye-contact with the headmistress, who had the decency to flush a deep and embarrassed red. She was mad, too, but since James hadn’t actually done any of the evils she’s suspected, that left her a bit disarmed. “Bond, you have work in an hour. Go get ready,” she ordered, while Suthord did his best to pretend he didn’t exist, “Quincy-”

“My name is Q.”

He was ignored, because the woman couldn’t take anymore of anyone’s shit this early in the morning. “-Come with me. The nurse wants to see you and talk about your memory.”

There was no further discussion on the rightness or wrongness of James and Q’s joint imprisonment, nor the damning but unspoken assumptions about what James was capable of - or the fact that those assumptions were dead-wrong, and James apparently had more morals than anyone gave him credit for. Instead, both boys were hustled out of the little room, James having to lock his knees to keep from bolting free like a cat from a pail of water. He suspected that Q was watching him keenly again (now with glasses to help him see the finer nuances of James' disquiet), but James refused to look over and confirm or deny that. Ears red with embarrassment, James managed to exit the room with something like dignity. 

“Come along, Quincy,” the Headmistress said in a tone trying for maternal. 

This time Q didn’t argue about the name, and the two went their separate ways as if the night before hadn’t happened.

~^~

Work was boring. It was always boring. Now, though, the boredom had a different quality because James was comparing it - not to life at St. Joseph’s - but to his time with Q. The kid should have been vexing and uninteresting, but instead James found that he missed the company as fiercely as a he’d missed the use of his right hand the first time he’d punched something hard enough to break his own bones. The healing process had been made slower by how much he wanted to use the hand. Now, work was made agonizingly longer by how much he wanted to get back and hear Q talk about constellations and space travel. 

Often times, James craved Alec’s company, but it was different. For all that Alec came from a good family with lots of money, he’d gotten into enough trouble during his life that he understood where James was coming from. Shadows recognized shadows. That, and Alec was relatively accessible, and James understood him in turn. Q… well, Q was accessible, but James understood Q about as much as a snail understood the moon. And the thing that kept boggling James was that, despite that, Q seemed to understand _him_.

James puzzled over that dichotomy all through work. His boss even commented on how thoughtful and quiet he was, at the end of shift; James grunted and nodded, and turned to leave before his boss could also add that James had actually smiled once or twice today, too, unprompted. 

Worried about what trouble Q could have found (or what trouble could have found him) while James was at work all morning, James almost didn’t hear the footsteps coming up behind him until a jovial, familiar voice called, “No pint-sized sidekick today?”

In the second that it took to recognized Alec Trevelyan’s voice, James’ body tensed, but by the time he stopped walking and turned, he was relaxed again. The other boy drew even with him, looking openly curious, awaiting an answer with about as much patience as Alec ever had - which was to say, exactly as much patience as it took to get what he wanted. Both James and Alec were manipulative, self-serving bastards that way, and therefore got along just fine. “No, I had work,” James replied, knowing that Alec was probably perfectly aware of this. Alec had connections, and it was highly unlikely that he’d just ‘bumped into James’ completely by accident. It should have been creepy but it wasn’t. “And my ‘sidekick’ had a meeting with a nurse - probably to make sure his skull is healing up or something.”

Alec hissed in a sympathetic breath past his teeth, commenting, “He really did take a crack, didn’t he?”

“Scars don’t lie.”

“True enough,” Alec replied wholeheartedly, then angled his body back in the direction James had been going. His eyes were shrewd as he looked at James askance and guessed, “It'd be useless to ask you out to dinner, wouldn’t it? Even if I said I’d buy. You’re going back to check on Q.”

Some secret part of James was weirdly pleased that Alec had remembered the dark-haired boy’s name. Maybe that was why he nodded, admitting even as he lifted a hand to rub at the back of his neck, “He’s a bit of a magnet for trouble, and he’s terrifyingly smart - seriously, he’s got enough random facts to be a professor at some posh university - but he’s…” He struggled for words a moment, finally settling helplessly on, “...Small.” 

“An easy target,” Alec translated easily. Something regretful settled in his eyes, turning the green from peridot to a darker jade. Alec and James both understood that the world head a mean-streak in it, but Alec still held a larger capacity to feel sad about it. 

Wanting to lighten the mood, James kept walking, eyes forward, and shrugged languidly, “Plus, you never buy.”

The chuckle he got in return was shameless, and a shoulder jostled his. “True enough, but it gets you to the table, doesn’t it?” 

They kept walking, talking about inconsequential things (like how much James hated working as a grocer and how much Alec liked hearing him complain about it) and slightly more consequential things (like what paying fights they could get into, or card games they could win money at despite their age). They did not talk about Alec’s family; they did not talk about James’ unprecedented protectiveness towards Q. Nonetheless, when they reached St. Joseph’s and Alec prepared to peal away as he usually did, the green-eyed boy said unexpectedly, “If you ever need someone else to keep Q safe, you know where to find me.” When James turned, surprised, it was to see a wholly sincere and sober look on Alec’s face. It made him look older, almost dangerous. Alec’s loyalty, James had found, could be an intimidating thing. 

Unsure how to respond, James opened his mouth, closed it… wondered where his silver tongue had gotten to… and then just nodded. They parted ways without another word.

~^~

Q had somehow managed to stay out of trouble in James’ absence, perhaps because he’d spent a lot of the time in the nurse’s office and then doing chores - both very supervised events. James was still secretly frantic by the time he finally found the kid, just walking out of the kitchen with his fingers still pink and pruny from dishes. James sighed with relief to see that the kid looked okay - no marks on him, and his smile came fast and easy. He trotted over to Bond and immediately started babbling about his day, and instead of being bothered by the inane talk, James leaned against the nearest wall and found himself relaxing as he listened. He kept some of his attention on their surroundings, keeping an eye out for trouble while Q talked uninhibitedly. It sounded like Q had had quite a full but frustrating day, as he talked about visiting both a nurse, a psychiatrist, and someone from child services - none of which struck Q as particularly helpful. It was interesting to see how harshly Q judged people like this when he didn’t seem to judge James at all; it made a tiny, starved part of James purr with pride. He listened attentively as Q talked about migraines and the frustration of not remembering things, and how no one seemed impressed by the tiny things he did remember - like how his name was Q, and he was sure he liked cats but had never owned one. 

Q still hated Cook Mayfield, too, for her slandering of James’ admittedly slanderable character. It was very nearly hilarious to watch Q scowl while talking snippily of her. 

The chatter continued right up until everyone was called for supper, which made Q a bit more nervous and subdued again. When James asked what was the matter, Q said that he had a headache, but James was already following Q’s line of sight to where he was scanning the other children nervously. James didn’t ask again, because he knew that really, Q was looking for bullies. Without another word, James urged Q ahead of him into the lunch line, and when Q squeaked in surprise and protested, the older boy just put a hand on his shoulder and kept walking along behind him. When they reached Cook Mayfield in the line where she was ladling out soup, she shot James a furious look that said she thought he was a young devil corrupting a baby angel, so James just smiled coldly at her in response. If she thought he was a charming demon, he could play the role. 

Unsurprisingly, James only got half a serving of soup. Thankfully, he’d already stolen an extra roll. 

Q’s nerves faded a bit as James ushered him to their previous eating spot at the window, Q once again clambering up onto the sill and making no protest as James’ longer legs boxed him in. This time, no one bothered them, perhaps having realized that Q was under Bond’s protection and that Bond was one mean sonofabitch. Soon Q was talking again, the kind of quick and eager speech that made James think that Q didn’t have any other outlet. Did no one else listen to this kid, now or in his unremembered past? James couldn’t answer that, but what he could do was listen to Q _now_ \- it seemed a fair repayment for all of the gifts of trust that Q gave him. Besides, Q was pleasant to listen to, and funny, too. If nothing else, it was endlessly hilarious to hear posh, polite little Q mutter creative invectives about people that even James was careful about insulting. James chuckled and grinned into his watery soup, which somehow tasted better with good company. 

Eventually, though, James had to remind Q to use his mouth for eating instead of talking. They fell into a surprisingly companionable silence then, although it wasn’t long before Q nudged James’ ankle, wanting to know what he’d done all day. James immediately assured Q that it had been terribly boring, but Q looked so earnestly interested, and it seemed like he wouldn’t start eating until James talked. So, finally, the older boy made a show of sighing and grudgingly giving out details about his day. He started with just generalities and snippets, expecting Q to quickly lose interest, but when Q just munched on an apple and watched James with big, attentive eyes, James opened up a bit more. By the time they were both finished eating, James was hesitantly making fun of his coworkers and even discussing some of the stupider customers he’d noticed today. 

And Q seemed interested in everything. 

James hadn’t realized how addictive that could be. 

~^~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It wasn't really until I reached this chapter that I was writing an attention-starved James...


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q has another rough night, and James is nervous because he has to show some of his true colors. Thankfully, Q has a very different idea about what James' "true colors" are.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: a sexual predator is mentioned in passing in this chapter. None of our lovelies get hurt, but it's a formative piece of backstory. This is a bit of a rougher chapter, with more angsty James, because Vesper is terrorizing his little muffin...

They headed to the dormitories a bit earlier at James’ behest, because the older boy had an idea and he didn’t want to miss the opportunity when all the other children started piling in and picking beds. With Q confused but curious behind him, James walked right over to the corner beds that he always commandeered the top bunk of, but this time he nodded towards the bottom one. “You’re sleeping here now, all right?” he said clearly.

Big hazel eyes blinked in bewilderment behind thick glasses. “Doesn’t another boy sleep here?”

“Not anymore,” James said with a definite note of finality, folding his arms. 

In response, Q narrowed his eyes a bit, and it was nice to see that the kid was capable of suspicion - it was a good survival instinct. All that Q concluded, though, after a moment of analyzing James, was, “You’re bossy, you know that?”

James raised one eyebrow. “Of all the things you’ve learned about me, and you decide that bossiness is the only thing you have a problem with?”

“None of the other things annoy me,” Q sniffed archly, but nonetheless toed his shoes off and crawled up onto the bed to make it his own. It was only after he was sitting in the middle of it that he looked back at James nervously, hugging his knees, “Are you sure this is okay? What if that other kid gets mad that I stole his bed?”

“Then,” James said, voice pleasant but his smile showing all of his teeth, “I’ll invite him to try and steal mine.” 

Q’s eyes got a bit wide, as if he were truly seeing what James was in this moment, and James waited for the moment when Q would re-evaluate their friendship. Q’s surprise somehow never quite tipped over into fear, though, and instead the boy relaxed his grip around his skinny legs. “Will that work?” he asked, “And by ‘will that work,’ I mean ‘will what work without getting you thrown in detention again’.” 

Damn but Q was shrewd sometimes… James let his predatory smile fade into a more honest grimace, looking away. “It’ll only be a real problem if _he_ starts it.”

“Uh-huh.” Q didn’t look entirely convinced. However, after a quick glance around the room - which was filling up as children were herded in - he grew uneasy again and reconsidered his options. “Okay,” he agreed. As James relaxed and turned away, assuming the conversation over, he was startled when skinny fingers snagged his wrist. Q was looking at him imploringly, eyes full of enough worry to immediately swamp James’ heart. All the boy asked, though, was, “You’re still sleeping on the top bunk, right?”

“Of course I am, Q,” James said, honestly flabbergasted that the kid would think otherwise. But he could see that Q was anxious, and by this point entirely too aware of his own vulnerability. Without thinking, James rotated his wrist until he was gripping Q’s wrist in return, giving it a strong squeeze. For most people, it would have simply been an ‘_I’m here_’ gesture, but for James it also meant ‘_Feel this strength, okay? This is what I have to protect you with_.’ It wasn’t just reassurance, it was a promise. “Just give the mattress above you a good shove, and I’ll be down in seconds,” he tried for a bit of humor. 

Q relaxed. James felt a flush of accomplishment as the smaller boy even put on a tiny smile. “Okay,” Q said again, and only then did he let go and start getting ready for bed in earnest. 

Just to be safe, James stayed on the ground level instead of climbing up into his accustomed bunk as he normally would have. Even as Q shyly changed into pajamas, James remained leaning against one of the bunks supports, as if standing guard… actually no. There was no ‘as if’ to it. James was totally standing guard, even if he wasn’t going to admit it. James took up the role of storyteller, telling a few tales this time of Alec and himself, and the various trouble they had gotten into. Q was equal parts amused and scandalized, and it was hilarious to watch his reaction even as he wrangled a sleep-shirt over his skinny torso. James already had an impressive number of scars for his age, but Q didn’t have a mark on him; James hoped that meant that wherever Q had come from, it had been a nice place where people were good to him. 

The boy who usually slept on the bunk beneath James started walking over… and after one look at Bond’s flatly icy blue eyes, did the smart thing and turned around again. Q didn’t even get a chance to get anxious. 

“Good night, Q,” James said as he finally climbed up into his bunk, with just enough gruffness so as not to seem like he was totally going soft. 

Q didn’t feel the need to do the same, apparently, as his voice was full of enough raw gratitude to break James on the inside, “Good night, James.”

~^~

It was a simple fact that James had been a light sleeper ever since his second foster home. He’d been in a house with a man who had a barely contained taste in young boys, and James had been able to sense it without being told. Nothing had happened, besides some creepy staring late at night - but that was probably because James had become a person who woke up at the slightest noise. That habit hadn’t gone away, even as James had been shuffled through other foster homes and eventually to St. Joseph’s. Sometimes he wondered if that paranoia had been one of the things that made him ‘un-adoptable,’ the first skill that he’d been forced to learn, but which had also turned him from a cute and cuddly boy into a harder, less approachable one.

Now, though, that habit of sleeping lightly paid off, as an unexpected noise had James’ eyes opening instantly in the dark. The rest of his body, well trained, didn’t move an inch to give away his wakefulness. 

“Did you think you were rid of me, little mouse?” It was Vesper, despite the fact that she should have been in the girls’ dorm. “You made a fool of me, and I just can’t abide by that. You know why? Because I’m an alpha dog around here, and it looks bad when little runts like you get away before I’m even done talking to them.” Bond’s attention immediately focused to razor-like keenness, and he tensed to move even before he knew what he was going to do. He thought he heard Q squeak something, but it was hushed with fear and incomprehensible. Vesper purred over it, “So I think that now is the perfect time to finish teaching you exactly what your place is at St. Joseph’s.”

James rolled over, making no attempt at quiet as he looked down off the edge of his bunk. He schooled his expression into something viciously annoyed as he growled, “Did you seriously forget that I sleep up here?” Apparently she had, because for a second Vesper looked flustered and angry, her eyes snapping up to him and widening. Bond couldn’t see Q from this angle, but by the little noises he could pinpoint now from below, the kid was pressed up against the back corner of the bed, as far from trouble as he could get, and probably scared as hell. 

Still on his bunk, wanting to give the impression of being relaxed even as tension ran through him like liquid metal, James stated flatly, “I’m going to say this simply, and I’m only going to say this once: find someone else to hunt.”

Vesper was recovering quickly, and raised one eyebrow as she asked incredulously, “Or you’ll what?”

“What did I do to the last person who messed with the kid?”

Vesper’s eyebrows dropped again and her eyes narrowed. For a moment there was silence, except for ambient snoring throughout the room, and the soft sounds of Q panting too quickly in his corner. If anyone had woken and heard anything, they were keeping quiet and feigning sleep, not wanting to get involved. Then something like understanding lit Vesper’s eyes, and James resisted the urge to curse - because the most dangerous part about Vesper Lynd was probably the fact that she was cunning. “I like you, James,” she stated unexpectedly, with an inviting tilt of her head that reminded James that she wasn’t a child any more than he was. “But I like you better when you’re _bad_.” 

James realized by the glint in Vesper’s eyes that he’d made a mistake; he’d revealed too much about his motives, and Vesper had seen enough to spot a weakness there. If he didn’t dissolution her in regards to that weakness, or at least distract her, she’d do the opposite of go away. She’d become a shark tracking blood through the water, obsessed and hungry, and she probably wouldn’t be alone. Making up his mind quickly on a plant of action, James gritted his teeth and then sat up to swing his legs over the side of the bed. He jumped down with a silent ease that he knew was impressive, but he did more than that, keeping his balance like a cat and walking forwards until he was all but standing on Vesper’s toes. They were almost eye-to-eye like this, with James putting on a look almost as sociopathic as hers. He had to. “Oh, you like bad, do you?” he whispered. 

James still didn’t quite understand all of Alec’s stories of ‘falling in love’ (which Alec seemed to do regularly), but he knew a bit about the icicle-edged interest he could see - and had seen before - in Vesper’s eyes. Also, if there was anything James knew, it was how to manipulate people. And that was what he needed to do now. He grabbed Vesper by the arms, suddenly and violently, hard enough to bruise and to bring a spark of fear to Vesper’s eyes. Her struggles were instinctive. When she got one arm free enough to swing it at him, James was expecting it, and didn’t even bother to stop her - or to flinch, as her open palm slapped hard across his left cheek. He just let his head snap to the side, then recovered silently, bringing his chilly blue eyes back to hers. Now, instead of fear, Vesper’s eyes were lit with excitement, and James saw that she’d lost _all_ interest in Q. Internally, James sighed with relief, even though he was actually rather sad that he’d been right in thinking that a bit of sadomasochism would turn Vesper on.

“Maybe you are still a little bit bad,” Vesper breathed, eyes searching his face before lingering on his cheek, although the room was surely too dark for her to see any kind of mark left behind. 

By way of response, James just let her go. He was wearing the face he’d worn the first day he’d come to St. Joseph’s, having long since realized that he’d never find a family that loved him, so he didn’t need to be lovable anymore. 

Vesper lifted a hand to lightly touch one arm, the distant look in her eyes saying that she was actually reliving the pain, and James felt sickened. He wasn’t even sure if he was sickened at her for her interest, or at himself for inflicting that pain so easily. 

“What I am is fucking tired,” James said, cycling through accents in his head, not really thinking about it as he settled on something British - but not posh and high-born this time. Vesper didn’t care about his manners, after all. So James instead molded his voice into something stereotyped as lower class, rougher and harsher, the vowels expansive and heavy in his mouth. “So either you leave, or I _make_ you leave.”

Vesper, against all logic, grinned. There was something breathless in her voice as she leaned closer to him instead of backing away and asked, “Won’t that get you in solitary?”

“Sure, but it’ll get _you_ in the infirmary,” James volleyed back without an ounce of hesitation. He had to convince her of the killer in his eyes - that he could hurt people as well as she could, if not better. 

Now the flash in Vesper’s eyes was equal parts fear and interest, which James was counting as a win, because it also got her to back off. And she didn’t dare take her eyes off him - the proclaimed wolf in the room - so that meant she didn’t spare another glance for Q. “Fine then. Catch you later, James,” she said before turning and disappearing from the room. It took James a moment before he realized that this was an echo of what she’d said last time they’d tangled, last time James had turned her away from Q. Only this time, it was a statement rather than a question, and it made something slimy turn over in James’ stomach. 

A little sniffle behind him reminded James of where he was and who he was still with. He started to turn and then physically froze, not wanting Q to see any of the predator left in his expression - because it was a sticky sort of mask, the kind that was hard to scrub off. Harder and harder, in fact, every time James wore it… and he’d already worn it far too often in his life. “Q?”

“Yes?” His voice was reedy and wet-sounding, brittle with uncertainty, and James’ heart twisted in his chest. 

“Climb up to the top bunk,” James ordered without pausing to second-guess his instincts. Those same instincts that had told him to bait Vesper were now telling him how to keep Q safe for the rest of the night. “Sleep up there. I’ll take the bottom bunk so that anyone who wants to make trouble with you has to go through me first. I should’ve thought of that before,” he finished.

Another sniff, then a sentence that would have been unexpected from anyone but Q, “You couldn’t have known.”

“Just get up there, Q, and go back to sleep,” James said tiredly instead of arguing. The thought of explaining to Q that _yes_, he should’ve known - because James was just like Vesper, and therefore should’ve remembered how she hunted - tore him up inside something awful, and he couldn’t do it. Maybe that was why his voice gentled as he added, “You’ll be all right.”

There was a long pause behind him, and for a moment James wondered if Q was going to argue with him, or worse yet, run away. That latter possibility made James close his eyes, blocking out the rest of the darkened dormitory even if it couldn’t silence the lonely howling that had started up in his thoughts. Being a ‘lone wolf’ had never bothered him before - so why did it now? The older boy exhaled quietly in relief when he eventually heard the bed creaking and blankets shuffling, followed by the quiet sounds of a small body climbing up the slats to the top bunk. Only when he was sure that Q was up top did James turn around, although he purposefully didn’t look up, too ashamed to make eye-contact. If he looked up, he’d have to explain, ‘_This, Q, is why I’m still here at St. Joseph’s and no one has taken me home. This is what an unadoptable boy looks like. And what you just saw? That’s what they do._’

Q was quiet, like a baby rabbit hiding in the grass was quiet, and James just hoped the poor kid would survive this place without scars. Hoping to help with that just a little bit, James pulled the blankets off the bottom bunk, and still without looking up, pushed the bundle to where Q was now. In response to Q’s noise of confused surprise, James said only, “It gets cold up there. The vents, remember?”

And then James stretched out on the bare bunk below. He didn’t know how long it was before he fell back into a shallow, ever-ready sleep, but it was a long time, and he spent that whole time staring at the bunk above him and quietly tracking the little sounds of Q shuffling around, getting comfortable, and eventually going still and emitting quiet little snores. 

~^~

The next day was Saturday, which usually meant James didn’t go to work, but instead lazed about all day until it was late enough that he could go out on the town with Alec and make some illicit money. Today, though, not only was James more worried about keeping Q safe than he was about gambling or fighting for money... but James was also informed that he had a full day of work. To say that he was furious and frustrated as hell was an understatement. While Q had survived the night without either freezing or waking up traumatized, James knew that the situation wasn’t over - and while James had managed to redirect a lot of Vesper’s interest to himself, that didn’t mean she’d sworn off on terrorizing cute little muffins like Q. The kid was catnip for anyone with bullying tendencies. 

So, because he couldn’t watch Q himself today as he wanted to… James took Alec up on his offer from the day before, taking Q into town when James went to work. 

“James, really, I’ll be okay,” Q protested, after they’d already slipped out of St. Joseph’s without getting caught by anyone who might want to insist that Bond leave his little sidekick behind. The younger boy trotted to keep up with James’ naturally longer strides. “I’m supposed to help with laundry today, but it’s going to be you who gets in trouble for taking me out again.”

“Q, I don’t know how you chose to interpret last night’s incident,” James said, his voice betraying some of the tension he was feeling, “but I can tell you for damn sure that Vesper interpreted it all as foreplay.” More literally than figuratively, in James’ case… “She may have decided to leave last night, but she’s only getting warmed up, and if she realizes that you’re on your own…” James didn’t finish the sentence. He did growl softly under his breath, though, staring straight ahead and wishing there was something physical for him to fight.

He was dragged out of his thoughts by Q again, just as he had been last night. This time, though, it was by the younger boy unexpectedly taking his hand. “Fine,” Q sighed, as if the handholding wasn’t a big deal - and for a boy his age, perhaps it wasn’t. For James it was like a bolt of lightning, leaving him too shocked to say anything, or do anything but stare stupidly at the little fingers curled inside his rough hand. Q went on with dramatic resignation, “I’ll spend the day with Alec. But you’d better tell him not to mess up my hair!”

James could have told Q that his hair was permanently a bird’s nest, but he was still trying to remember how to breathe and talk. It was a miracle that he was still walking alongside Q, although now at a slower pace more compatible with both of them. He also wanted to ask how Q wanted to even be near him, much less touch him, after last night. Instead, all that eventually fell out of Bond’s mouth was, “Deal.” He recovered a bit more, managing to add, “No promises that he’ll listen, though. Alec is kind of a free spirit.”

Q cocked his head like a thoughtful baby bird, and surprised James by asking next, “How long have you known him?”

It had become second nature surprisingly quickly for James to just answer Q’s questions without pause. “Pretty much since I came to St. Joseph’s… so about a year.” Usually, James analyzed his own words and the words of others, always seeking motives and manipulations amidst the vowels and consonants, but that whole concept seemed totally foreign when dealing with Q. The idea of Q having ulterior motives was just plain laughable, and for some reason James couldn’t imagine himself manipulating the kid in return. “We get into the same kind of trouble, run in the same sort of circles,” he went on, trying to sound relaxed and genial about it, “It was inevitable that we’d run into each other.”

“And become friends?” Q’s voice was so guileless, like making friends was easy. His little hand was still tucked into Bond’s, and his eyes were big and watchful behind his glasses. James just nodded, and hoped that Q wouldn’t ask whether James had made any other friends this way, because the truth was that James hardly made friends at all. 

Instead, Q looked forward again, pressing his lips in against his teeth thoughtfully. “And he has a family?”

“Yes.”

“Are they nice?”

“I don't really know them,” James hedged, trying not to meet Q’s eyes because he had a feeling that Q was a lot more perceptive than he was naive - at least when it came to James’ expressions. Right now, James wasn’t even sure if his face was giving away wariness, distrust, or a confused sort of yearning. “Alec makes them sound pretty terrible, though.”

James _did_ look over when he sensed more than saw Q bristle. He was amused to see that the kid had quite suddenly gotten angry on Alec’s behalf, all in an instant, despite Alec’s noisy nature and hair-ruffling habits. Expression set into a truly threatening glower, Q took in a breath as if to start in on the tirade of the century. James decided to cut him off before he went too far down the wrong path. “Easy, Q, they don’t starve him or beat him or anything.” After saying that, James frowned, realizing that his own measurement for _nice_ caregivers was perhaps a bit skewed if these were his criteria. He amended awkwardly, “They sort of forget that he exists, but if he ever got into serious trouble, I’m sure they’d help him out.”

Q still didn’t seem very convinced of the niceness of Alec’s parents, and it wasn’t like James could argue much more - he was already going out on a limb, saying things he _thought_ made for good parents. He honestly barely remembered his, overshadowed as they were by more recent recollections and caregivers. That, and trying to recall his birth-parents was painful, so James didn’t like to go there in his mind. “What matters is that Alec has parents with money so he doesn’t have to work, and he’s not subject to the rules of St. Joseph’s, so he can watch you all day without any trouble,” James finally said lamely, hoping that that summed up the situation. Or perhaps distracted Q from all this talk about families.

It sort of did. A bit. But not as much as James had hoped. Q was still looking forward pensively as they walked, but now he leaned into James’ arm a bit, hand still in the other boy’s. He sounded dreamy and thoughtful, saying, “I think my parents are a bit like that.”

James startled. “You-? You remember?”

Head against James’ upper arm, Q shook his head ‘no’ but then added, “But it just feels right. Like my name feels right. I’m Q, and my parents are a lot like Alec’s.”

Suddenly James was re-evaluating whether or not he really enjoyed the idea of aloof parents. Sure, Alec survived that way, but it had already made Alec into a young man a lot like James… which really wasn’t healthy or well-adjusted. Deep down, James had to confront the fact that he wanted something different, something _better_, for Q. Fiercely. 

“Do you…?” He wasn’t sure why he was asking this, or even what answer he wanted. James cleared his throat and then tried again, “Do you think they’re looking for you?” He was reasonably sure that Alec’s parents would go looking if their child went missing, but probably only after a few days. 

Q narrowed his eyes; he had a faraway look in them that was getting familiar. Talking as if still deep in his thoughts, the younger boy murmured, “If they’re not, I know my brothers are.” Barely had the words slipped out of Q’s mouth than his eyes were widening and he stopped walking. Those eyes sought out James’ eyes as Q turned to him and gripped the older boy’s fingers in both hands. “James!” he hissed, “James, I have brothers! I _know_ I have brothers!”

The bolt of sudden, hot jealousy was unexpected, a painful heat in James’ chest that came upon him at the thought of Q having other people to depend on. Perhaps that was why James’ voice was stiff and aloof as he turned to Q and asked, “And what are their names?”

At first, it looked like the kid would answer, mouth opening eagerly and a breath sucking in… but then his entire self seemed to crumple. His shoulders slumped and his mouth closed, eyes darting this way and and that in sudden, dejected confusion. To make matters worse, those big eyes suddenly glittered with tears, and James abruptly felt like his heart had been torn out of his chest. He didn’t even think about it, just dropped to a knee and turned Q to him, hands up on the smaller boy’s face. “Oh shit, Q, I didn’t…! _Please_ don’t cry,” he said, wishing he had more practice at comforting someone. He’d had atrocious role-models in that department, and felt painfully inadequate now, even as Q allowed him to swipe a thumb up under his glasses, catching tears as they escaped past thick, dark lashes. Q sniffled despite James’ pleas. “Look, it’s great that you remember you have brothers. It means that it’s coming back to you. The names will come, yeah?” James tried to coax some levity back into the situation before Q’s crying broke him clean in half. Since James was pretty sure that it was his gruff question that had started the tears, he felt like an arse. Q’s cheeks were warm and damp now beneath his palms, but the little boy seemed to be rallying. 

“Sorry,” Q finally said. 

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.” To make up for his earlier insensitivity, James infused as much surety into that statement as possible, to make it very clear that this wasn’t Q’s mistake. Q tolerated James gently swiping away the last few tears from his lashes, before the older boy stood again, hands going awkwardly to his pockets now that he realized what he’d been doing with them. “Let’s go find Alec, all right? He’ll be excited that you remembered something, too.”

It took a bit before Q’s chattiness recovered, the next block being walked in uncomfortable silence. Eventually, though, the bespectacled boy started talking again, starting with mild complaints about his therapist. “I don’t think he’s trying very hard,” Q griped, “or is even a very good therapist.” When James asked why Q thought that, the kid launched into a shockingly articulate tirade about psychology and the human brain. James didn’t know the first thing about either topic, but by the time Q was done, he was willing to believe that Q’s therapist was indeed a bit of a fuck-up. 

When Q fell silent again, it was with that distant look in his eyes that said he was pulling something from deep within his damaged memory. James held his breath, this time bracing himself to be supportive instead of a total berk. “You know-” Q mused, leaning into James a little bit - possibly accidentally, because they’d moved to make space for someone passing them on the sidewalk. Possibly it was on purpose, though. “-I don’t think that I had someone who listened to me like this." 

Unsure what to do with that bit of information, James merely said, “Oh?” and hoped that he wouldn’t trigger more tears.

This time, Q merely frowned and shook his head. He lifted a hand to rub at where his scar was, beneath his tousled mess of hair. “I don’t know how I know that, but I just do. I mean, it kinda makes sense, right? I talk an awful lot,” Q finished with a forced chuckle. 

“Well, my families have always complained that I don’t talk _enough_,” James said, his heart giving a nervous twist of panic as he gave out that information. It wasn’t something he usually talked about; it was, in fact, a secret hurt that he tried to bury pretty deeply. The only times that James Bond really talked was when he was conning someone, and that didn’t really make for good familial communications. “So I guess we balance each other out,” he finished soothingly.

Q relaxed visibly at the reassurance. His smile became more real. The knot in James' chest unclenched a little. 

~^~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More and more backstory coming out - both for "bad boy" James and his favorite fluffy amnesiac ;) Apologies to anyone who likes Vesper... she's not going to get better in this story. 
> 
> *hugs the Not-Bad-Boy and the Smol Fluff*


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q spends a day with Alec - but then develops a headache.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Or, the chapter in which Alec gains proper respect for James' scary-smart little amnesiac ;) Also more James who needs hugs. Everybody needs hugs.

They managed to hunt down Alec just before James was due at work. He was just leaving one of his girlfriends’ houses, and James was very, very glad that Q didn’t ask about that. James himself knew entirely too much about his friend’s _extracurricular activities_, and didn’t fancy explaining them in their intricacies to Q. Instead of bubbling over with curiosity, Q instead reverted to his shy self the moment a tousled but happy-looking Alec emerged from the house. Despite Q’s easy acceptance of Alec up until now, Q once again snuggled his way under James’ arm until he was a veritable burr against James’ ribs. Cautious hazel eyes watched Alec as the eldest boy took notice. 

“Hey, Jamesy, I didn’t expect to see you and your sidekick back so soon,” Alec immediately called out, as he took in Q’s clinginess with a raised eyebrow. “At least you didn’t find any muggers this time.”

“We actually found trouble of another kind,” James admitted soberly. He settled an arm around Q’s shoulders and started explaining the situation with Vesper and her crew. Alec immediately grew attentive, and progressively grimmer, because he knew a bit about the politics of St. Joseph’s House. When James got to the part about fending off Vesper just the night before, Alec’s eyes grew hooded and unreadable, even as James stalwartly described his own behavior at the end. Bond waited, feeling defensive after he finished, unsure whether Alec would have any comment on his behavior or not. 

To James’ surprise and relief, however, Alec merely nodded - if he found James’ actions particularly monstrous, he was keeping it to himself. Perhaps later, the other shoe would drop. “So now you have work,” Alec finished it off, guessing, “and you need some dashing knight to defend your bespectacled damsel?”

Q took great offense to that, but at least when he started defending himself, he also stepped out from under James’ arm at long last. James watched Q and Alec bicker, smiling to himself as he watched Alec’s naturally infuriating charm mesh and clash in turns with Q’s sudden vociferousness and moxie. The kid was quite a sight when riled; he clearly forget entirely how pint-sized he was. 

“I’ve got to go,” he eventually had to interject, “I wish I could stay and see how this verbal brawl turns out, but if I get fired for tardiness, St. Joseph’s will just find me a more annoying job.”

In response to James’ reluctant declaration, Alec put on his broadest grin and caught Q by surprise in a headlock. “If they knew just how much trouble you got up to when you’re bored, they’d realize that they’re only punishing themselves by doing that,” he opined while Q squawked indignantly and struggled. 

Q’s struggling stopped when James - after chuckling and nodding appreciatively to Alec’s comment - stepped forward and laid a hand on his ruffled dark hair. Alert hazel eyes immediately peered upwards over the rims of thick glasses, as attentive as the retriever that James just barely remembered from his childhood. It was a rare, good memory of before his parents had died. “Be good, Q, okay? You’re safe with Alec, and I’ll see you for supper.”

Little fingers dimpling Alec’s arm where it had loosened around his neck (a companionable grip now instead of a restricting one), Q took James’ words in solemnly. His mouth looked ready to dip downwards at the edges at first, but then he managed a small smile instead. “Okay. Is this going to get you into trouble?”

“I’m always in trouble,” James said with a game smile. He gave Q’s hair a thorough tousling just to tease him before turning away to jog to work.

~^~

Being an only child, Alec knew fuck-all about younger children. But he was suspicious about the fact that Q was already, at his age, more interested in the library than the park, and the speed with which Q handled the public computers was just plain scary. The computer had originally been for Alec’s entertainment, as he logged in with his library card (something he was faintly surprised that he possessed) and planned to play whatever basic games the machine had while Q buried himself in books. Alec had barely been on for five minutes, however, before Q had drifted over him like a moth to a flame, and all but climbed into Alec’s lap to get access to the computer. Q didn’t technically have permission to be using the machine, but no one was watching, and Alec wasn’t much of a rule-follower anyway - so when he tried to tell Q that this wasn’t allowed, he wasn’t very surprised to get an unimpressed look in return. Alec ended up giving up his chair and just sitting on the floor next to Q while the strange kid started typing away, eyes fixated and fingers hummingbird-quick. 

Alec had prepared for boredom. Instead, he found himself horrified and fascinated as Q started getting into things that he was pretty sure the library had firewalls against. 

“I’m apparently good with computers,” Q noted when they were eating lunch at a nearby cafe some hours later. Alec was still a bit shell-shocked from the experience, and didn’t have it in him to argue as Q began picking bits of food off his plate despite still having plenty on his own. Q chewed, swallowed, then looked upwards thoughtfully before amending, “I’m apparently _very_ good with computers.”

“I’m pretty sure that some of what you did was illegal,” Alec felt obliged to choke out. 

Q gave him another one of those sarcastic _‘Really?_’ looks in return. Q went back to nibbling indiscriminately between both of their plates. Alec wondered if Q did the same with James. Instead of pursuing the topic of his rediscovered computer skills, the scary little amnesiac unexpectedly asked, “Alec? Is James a bad person?”

Startled by the question, Alec paused, trying to choose an answer that wouldn’t get him in trouble without being a lie. Usually, he’d have gone with the lie, but he was swiftly recalculating his notions of Q’s acuity. Clearly, James’ tagalong was smart. Alec finally took the coward’s way out and said back, “Why do you ask?”

No longer eating, but instead picking at a piece of bread and reducing it slowly to crumbs, Q looked troubled before replying, “Because _he_ clearly thinks he’s a bad person… but I don’t think he is.”

The way Q looked up challengingly at the end of that last statement made it clear that Alec would have a fight on his hands if he dared disagree - thankfully, Alec had no quarrel with that last statement. In fact, he relaxed, suddenly realizing that Q understood their mutual friend very deeply, as Alec did. Folding his forearms across the table, Alec gave a soft, slightly sad smile and replied, “I don’t think he is either. Not in the ways that matter anyway.” He felt obliged to add, a bit more blithely, “I mean, he cheats at cards and is clearly willing to punch people in the face, but he’s definitely not as bad a bloke as he thinks he is.” It felt strange to talk about James this way, to another person, because these were statements that Alec certainly wouldn’t say to the blue-eyed boy himself - even if they were often on the tip of Alec’s tongue. 

“Why does he keep saying that he’s bad then?” Q asked next, clearly confused.

Alec sighed, and this time gave the truth as he knew it, without hesitation, “Because that’s what people have been telling him for a very long time.”

~^~

James couldn’t get off work soon enough. It wasn’t so much that he was worried about Alec keeping Q safe, but Q really could be a handful at times… Bond’s worry petered off when he saw them through the store windows at the end of his shift, Alec and Q walking up with ice-creams in hand. They sat on the bench outside until James was released from his duties, and even had an extra cone to offer him. It looked licked. Alec said that it had been necessary, since it had been dripping, but Q’s face was a dead giveaway that at least some of the licking had _not_ been necessary. James sat with them anyway, gladly eating the remaining ice-cream and relaxing now that the two people he cared about in this world were with him again - safe and contented. 

Whereas James expected the youngest boy to immediately start chattering about their day without him, it was Alec who spoke up first: “You’ve got a scarily smart kid here, you know that, don’t you?”

“Fuck, you took him gambling, didn’t you?”

Alec’s eyes widened and a dollop of vanilla dripped unnoticed onto his knuckles. “_You_ took him gambling?!” 

Unaware of the horror he was causing, Q looked back and forth between the two older boys guilelessly and commented, “I’m really very good at cards.”

James _did_ get a bit of a lecture about that, because Alec had enough of a homelife to realize that taking minors gambling was morally reprehensible… but then James and Alec realized that they’d both been sharpening their gambling skills as minors, and the discussion got a bit mired down by self-reflection. It was hard to get holier-than-thou when basically all of them were guilty of the same thing. 

When Q finally said that, no, they’d spent most of their day at the library instead, James relaxed - until Alec gave him a warning look that said now was not the time to get complacent. That was when the story really started coming out, about the fact that Q had apparently hacked through all of the various childproofing on the library computers… and apparently into various systems from there. “I was just poking around,” Q defended himself, then grew more lively, gesturing with his nearly-empty cone, “And then I realized that I was good at it, and I wanted to see _how_ good I was!”

“The answer is ‘very’,” Alec mouthed over Q’s head. 

Suddenly Q’s eyes widened and then he took an angry bite of his ice-cream cone. “Dammit, I should’ve started digging into the case about where and how they found me,” he grumbled as he chewed.

“Don’t swear,” James said at the same time that Alec rebuked, “Don’t talk with your mouth full.” Both older boys instantly looked at each other, flushing an embarrassed red. Q looked between both of them with a raised eyebrow that said he was judging them. 

James and Q had to get back for supper (if Q hadn’t been missed already, he’d certainly be noticed missing a second meal, even if James wasn’t), so they parted ways not long after the ice-cream ran out. Q claimed that his head was hurting him a bit, and the kid was tired - he’d had a long day, even if a large portion of it had been spent in front of a library computer. James thanked Alec and they made to part ways, but not before Alec called after them, “Hey! Don’t wait until there’s trouble next time before visiting, all right, James? And that goes for your little genius, too.” Alec gave Q a jaunty wink, which Q didn’t seem to know what to do with, besides looking faintly scandalized and faintly touched. 

Feeling his own heart warm, James smiled back and nodded. 

~^~

Q did indeed seem to have a growing headache, so he was a bit quieter on the walk home. They managed to slip in for supper without seeming to attract any unwanted attention, and the meal itself was uneventful - Vesper was there, but her attention was on the people already at her table. James and Q were able to slip out to eat at the windowsill again, and drew no attention. The only shadow cast on the evening was the fact that Q was mostly picking at his food, eyes squinted against the light and his skinny body tense. When James asked, Q merely said, “Headache” and kept distractedly nibbling. When James suggested they go see the nurse, Q merely nodded. The passivity was worrisome, and James was the one acting clingy as they walked down the hallway - instead of Q squeezing up next to his side, the older boy found himself hovering, his every step ensuring that their arms brushed. 

When they got to the nurse’s office, the woman greeted Q with a smile and then did a doubletake as she realized who he was keeping company with, and the smile faded. The real thing that made James bristle, though, was the fact that the ensuring scowl was split between them - James had a track-record of being a terrible patient, sure, but that didn’t give anyone the right to paint Q with the same brush. James was asked to wait outside as Q was seen to, leaving James feeling a lot like the stray mutt relegated to the porch while the actual pet was allowed inside. Although, as long as Q was treated accordingly as a beloved pet, James could deal with his own identity in that metaphor.

Q came back out very soon after, looking pretty much the same: uncomfortable and distracted. James wasn’t very used to worrying about other people, and wasn’t sure how to express what he was feeling now, but it must have been obvious, because Q was quick to mollify him, “I just need to sleep it off.” It wasn’t all that late yet, but considering the active day that Q had had at Alec’s side, James couldn’t see any flaw in that plan. Shoving his hands in his pockets because he had the sudden urge to touch Q, James accepted Q’s words with a nod and wordlessly led the way to the dormitory. When Q protested that James didn’t have to go to bed just because he was, it was a weak argument, and James ignored it until Q gave up. They were the first ones to bed that night, with Q once again crawling up to the top bunk that James had previously claimed as his own. The beds had been made, but James unmade the lower bunk again to give Q another blanket. This time, instead of just tossing it up, he climbed up a few rungs to pass the blanket up and ensure that Q actually rolled up in it. It was a good thing he did, because Q already had his glasses off and seemed unable to remember what to do next. The squinting of his eyes looked like it was partially from pain as well as nearsightedness, even as James quietly reminded Q to change into pajamas. 

The older boy only returned to the bottom bunk when he’d seen to it that Q was settled for the night. Not long after, the rest of the St. Joseph’s boys began filing in, but James paid them no mind, simply lying in bed and staring upwards as he tried to remember when he’d last been so worried about the wellbeing of another person. 

~^~

James felt like he’d only been asleep for seconds when something woke up. His body went through its usual reaction of going completely still, feigning sleep even as all of his senses came immediately to full alertness; he slitted open his eyes a moment later, but could find nothing out of place in the darkened room. No lurkers by his bedside, no shadowy figures slinking in to cause trouble. The only sounds were the usual snoring and night-mumbling… no, that wasn’t true. James frowned and looked upwards as he heard a fretful shuffling above him, followed by a whimper. _‘Nightmare_,’ he identified, because pretty much everyone at St. Joseph’s had them. Instead of ignoring it like he would have for anyone else, however, James found himself already sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the bed, bare feet carrying him over to the slats at the foot of the bunks so that he could climb up. 

What he saw when his head crested the side of the top bunk, however, was not what he’d expected. Q wasn’t even asleep. Instead, the smaller boy was sitting up with his head between his hands, fingers pressed so hard against his temples that James could see them whitening even in the dark. Face set in a rictus of pain, Q’s cheeks glittered with tear-tracks, and James immediately felt his entire body light up with alarm. He was pulling himself up onto the top bunk without another thought. “Q, what’s going on? What’s wrong?” he immediately demanded, reaching out and then hesitating, his mind involuntarily going back to the night before - to what a monster he’d been, to what Q must have seen him do with these hands. He refrained from touching, something in his belly twisting until it hurt. Q actually flinched, but with his eyes shut so that he couldn’t know that he was being reached for, James couldn’t be certain that he had caused it. 

Q’s jaw clenched, and when he parted his lips to answer, he first had to drag in a ragged gasp. The moonlight through the nearby window glinted off another streaking tear even as Q rasped out, “My-My head…! James, my head hurts so bad…!” He cut off with a little whimper, and draw his knees up to himself, as if he could hide from the pain. Suddenly, things began to fall into place. 

Remembering Q talking about the after-affects of his head injury, James knelt in front of the younger boy and was extra careful to keep his voice down as he asked, “Is it a migraine?” He got a weak nod and a whine that went straight to his heart. “Didn’t the nurse give you something for that?”

“She… She…” Q sniffled and quivered as he tried to gather his words, and it was so obvious that everything hurt him that James couldn’t help but shuffle a bit closer on his knees, and reach out again. This time he dared put his hands gently on Q’s shoulders even as his knees bracketed Q’s huddled form. Eyes squeezed tightly shut and fingers fisting in his hair now, Q finally managed, “She… She said that… I needed to tough- toughen up. That if I didn’t want to become an addict, I should…” He stopped talking, the effort too much, and released another quiet keen from high in his throat, more tears flowing.

James felt something wrathful rise up in his chest as he guessed the rest of the story, “She gave you weaker painkillers than usual, didn’t she?” Again, another helpless nod. It took conscious effort not to clench his hands as James felt a wave of fury go through him; as it was, he still squeezed down lightly on Q’s knobby shoulders before forcing himself to be calm. Right now, there was no point in raging at a nurse who wasn’t even present, especially since that would mean explaining that this wasn’t about addiction - it was about punishing Q for the company he kept. James couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so angry. “What do you usually take, Q, when it gets this bad?” he pressed instead, trying to focus on something constructive. 

Q gave him the name of a medication that James hadn’t even heard of before, so the older boy had to ask Q to spell it. The youngster’s voice was shaky and reedy, but he answered obediently, without asking why in the world James was so interested. It was clear that Q wasn’t in any fit state to even climb down off the top bunk, much less take a trek to the nurse’s office - which was very probably locked up and empty at this time of night, on a weekend. Kids as St. Joseph’s learned to deal with any hurts on their own until morning. James had never questioned that before, but now, the thought of a nurse asking Q to ‘toughen up’ had Bond seeing red. 

“Lie back down, Q,” James commanded gently, even as he took careful note of the constant shivers also wracking the kid’s small body - he was under the air vents, after all, and his blankets had fallen away from him. James began pulling them back around him even as he knelt up and gently pressed Q down towards the pillow. Q made some truly pathetic noises (thankfully quiet ones) but didn’t have any fight in him, and was soon curled up in a stiff ball on his side. He looked so small and fragile like this; eyes tightly shut, pain written in every line of his body, skinny limbs shivering. James tried to fix the last problem by bundling up all the blankets on top of the younger boy, leaving his head uncovered only long enough to put a very careful hand on Q’s brow - getting his attention, watery eyes opening just a slice - and saying fervently, “I’m going to leave for a bit, but I promise that I’ll be right back and that I’ll make this better, all right? Just stay warm under the blankets until I get back. I won’t be long.”

This time James got more of a pained blink than a nod, but he hoped that Q understood. He pulled the blankets up over the head of tousled dark hair to seal in the warmth, also knowing that it would shield Q and his vulnerability from prying eyes. So far, no one seemed to have woken, but James was quickly realizing that he was paranoid when it came to Q’s safety. The kid was just so precious and small… Giving himself a mental shake to get back on task, James jumped lightly down from the bed, not wanting to waste a single second he didn’t have to, not even with climbing down. 

Without an ounce of hesitation, he stole out of the dormitory to go and steal some painkillers. It was, very possibly, the first time that he’d seriously stolen something that wasn’t for himself. 

~^~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *strikes a heroic pose* JAMES MUST GO ON A QUEST TO SAVE HIS BABY BIRD!!!!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James helps Q through his migraine - and later, they go to visit Alec.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of hurt/comfort in this chapter - heavy on the comfort, because Q is a Smol Fluff, and James is soft for Smol Fluffs (they are his kryptonite)

James had actually learned how to lockpick from Alec, who had learned it himself out of a combination of boredom and a habit of getting himself locked out of his house at embarrassing hours of the morning. Alec had actually gifted James with a lockpick set, although the blue-eyed youth had to keep it hidden for obvious reasons. Now James was using those lockpicks in one of his most daring heists yet, realizing that breaking into the medical facilities of St. Joseph’s was the kind of crime that could feasibly get him into worse trouble than just solitary for a night. Still, he kept at it, eyes and ears straining for signs of anyone approaching while his sense of touch focused on the lock. It gave way after a minute or two, before any late-night hall-wanderer could stumble upon him. 

Finding Q’s medication took a bit longer. James didn’t want to turn lights on if he didn’t have to, but he also didn’t have a torch, so he did a fair amount of stumbling around in the dark - to be fair, it was more skillful than the average stumbling, since James had been in plenty of situations that had honed his nocturnal skills. Finally, after turning on a desk-lamp in the shadow of a cabinet so as not to draw attention, James was able to find what he was looking for - behind a locked glass door. He snorted quietly to himself at how easily he could have just broken the glass, but then reminded himself that this wasn’t just a smash and grab. It would be better for himself and for Q if no one saw any evidence of James’ thievery. So, the lockpicks were put to work again. It took effort to focus on his work instead of giving into the urge to rush - but not because he was afraid of getting caught, curiously enough. James had pretty steady nerves when it came to pulling stunts like this, and had already relegated the danger to the back corner of his mind where it wouldn’t distract him. But what he couldn’t so easily ignore, he found, was that Q was depending on him, and every minute more that James wasted on this damned lock was another minute that Q was suffering - and possibly in danger, since there was no guarantee that another St. Joseph’s kid wouldn’t turn up and try to mess with the newbie in James’ absence. That spurred James to work faster, and it took effort not to make stupid mistakes in the process. More than once he froze in place, reaching to flick the light off, as he thought he heard something in the hallway outside. At one point, he was actually very, very glad that he’d locked the door behind him, because a hand actually tested the lock before walking on. James went right back to work as soon as the danger was passed, actually picking the lock in the dark and only flicking the lamp back on when he had to differentiate between pill bottles. Finding Q’s, he read the dosage carefully, and tapped out the required pills onto his palm, where they quickly found their way into a tissue that he folded up carefully around them before sliding them into his pocket. He’d probably never treated anything else so carefully… except maybe Q himself. 

One of the offices had a bottle of water left on the corner of their desk… James swiped it, too. It was still sealed, and not exactly valuable, and who knew if Q would be able to dry-swallow pills?

~^~

James felt as if he’d used up all the good luck of his entire life when he returned to the dormitories without getting caught, and climbed up to Q’s bunk to find the kid as he’d left him - clearly still miserable, but otherwise unmolested. If James never had a stroke of good luck again after using it all on Q, he’d still have no regrets, he decided right then. With a sigh of relief, he climbed the rest of the way onto the bunk, calling out Q’s name softly as the boy only huddled deeper into the blankets. James had to peel the blankets away from him, and was greeted by teary eyes and a soft, pained whine like a puppy that had been kicked. The echoing pain in James’ chest was visceral and sharp, and he wasn’t sure how to feel. Worried? Panicked? Angry? Protective? Emotions a hot knot in his chest, the older boy coaxed Q into a sitting position so that he wouldn’t choke, and watched as the smaller boy all but inhaled the proffered pills anyway, so eager was he to escape the pain. Of course, merely swallowing medication and a few mouthfuls of water wasn’t going to magically remove a migraine, a fact that Q didn’t seem happy with as he lowered the water bottle and released a pathetic little sob. “I just want it to stop…” he mewled quietly, and James hushed him before anyone else could hear. As he reeled Q in against his side, murmuring senseless apologies for a pain he had nothing to do with and no control over, the blond-haired boy also realized that Q was cold still, despite the blankets. 

“Here, Q, how about you and I just try to get back to sleep?” James offered, hushed and as soothing as he could manage. He didn’t have a lot of practice at acting soothing, but he vaguely remembered his mother rubbing his back when he was sick, so he tried that with Q. The boy was already folding into him, huddled like a wet kitten under a porch, and it was easily the saddest thing that James had ever witnessed. “You can’t hurt if you’re unconscious,” he reasoned, trying for a smile, but letting it slip as he realized that Q didn’t have it in him to notice the expression. Instead, James looked around one last time to make sure no other St. Joseph’s kids were watching, and eased down onto the bed - pulling Q with him. 

When suffering from a migraine, Q was almost disturbingly pliant, barely wriggling even when he ended up stretched mostly over James’ chest. Bond was determined to warm Q up, though, and also to keep an eye on his condition - and in this position, he could feel Q’s every breath puffing through his shirt, and even the jackrabbit-patter of Q’s heart when he wrapped his arms around Q’s shoulders and pulled him close. It definitely wasn’t a position that people would have expected the aloof, antisocial James Bond to put himself in, but by the time the two boys fell still again, Q was a cuddled lump on James’ chest and the blankets were drawn up over both of them. Q’s fluff of hair was all that stuck out, tickling James’ nose, and he absently brushed it down a little bit. When Q huffed out a breath that sounded less pained than before, he did it again, not realizing when it became a repetitive motion. In the dimness, he watched the blankets rise and fall gently with Q’s every breath, feeling his own body relax as they slowed a little bit. 

Time lost all meaning for a while after that. James hooked one arm over Q’s torso - just to ensure that he stayed in place - and kept petting his hair down with the other hand. When Q whimpered, he’d murmur gentle things, useless things. Things like “It’ll be all right” and “I’m here,” things that hadn’t held any meaning to James in a long, long time but that he unpacked, brushed the dust off, and put to use now as best he could. It was hard to say things that James, if someone had said those words to _him_, wouldn’t have believed. 

But it seemed to work on Q. Because even as James felt tears dampen the front of his shirt, he also felt one of Q’s little hands move and fist in the cloth, clinging like James _mattered _to him. The older boy ended up wrapping both arms around Q’s back and nuzzling into Q’s wild mop of hair, breathing in the smell of _soap_ and _boy_ and exhaling his own hot breath into the tangle. Q shuddered and sighed in response, and perhaps that was when the meds also began to kick in, because his breathing evened out with sleep. Q’s body relaxed into a comfortable weight on Bond’s torso, but the little fist never released James’ shirt. 

~^~

James awoke with a start to the sensation of warm air puffed against his throat. One puff, then a second. Then a third. And by then James remembered that he had a tiny boffin on his chest, the events of the night before sweeping back in. Having tensed up instinctively, the older boy relaxed, sighing and lifting a hand free of the blankets to rub the sleep from his eyes. Judging by the ambient lighting and the tenor of the snores around him, it was morning, but still pretty early, his internal clock urging him to take advantage of the day before it could take advantage of _him_. The fact that it was Sunday made no difference. Q, predictably, was still out like a light - but considering the night he’d had, it was hard to blame him. 

“Hey,” James said in a hushed tone, taking a lock of dark hair (the only part of Q poking out of the blankets) and giving it a gentle tug, “Q, it’s time to get up.”

Q made a discontented noise and pushed his face down against Bond’s sternum, bodily burrowing closer. “Mmm, no,” he murmured, barely intelligible, “You’re not my mum, Mycroft.”

James had no idea who ‘Mycroft’ was, or if that was even a name, so he found himself at a loss for a moment. “Q?” he tried again, this time putting his hand under the blanket and finding one bony shoulder to squeeze.

This time, Q roused a bit, head swiveling so that James ended up with a poky chin against his chest and frankly adorable bleary eyes half-opening to glare at him. This time, the half-hum, half-growl that Q emitted had a faint question-mark implied in it.

“You look like an owl that just woke up,” James noted.

“I did just wake up,” the kid slurred back with a little furrowing of his brow.

James smirked, and couldn’t help but retort, “Fine, then explain the owl part.”

In response, Q made a disgruntled cat noise and tried to retreat under the blankets again, at which point James decided that he’d done his due diligence. Sitting up, the older boy ensured that Q slid off him and towards the wall rather than the edge of the bunk, but otherwise ignored the affronted noises that came from his smaller companion. Feeling remarkably contented, James just sat and smirked as Q fought the blankets for a bit, finally sitting up himself, blankets pooling around him and one shoulder poking out of his nightshirt as the collar fell askew. “How’s your head?” James asked, watching keenly despite the easy smile he pasted on.

It took a bit for Q to grasp the question - further proof that Q was not a morning person. “S’okay,” he managed to answer, and there were no indicators that he was lying. If anything, the kid looked a bit surprised, blinking (again, _owlishly_) and lifting a hand to rub at one temple, as if not quite able to believe it. Eyes focusing a bit, Q leaned forward towards Bond as if trying to get him into Q’s limited range of vision. “_You_ did that,” the kid said without preamble, although he backtracked and elaborated quickly, “You found me painkillers.”

Q sounded so grateful - almost worshipful - that James found himself looking away uncomfortably, hoping to high heaven that he wasn’t blushing. Dragging a hand back through his hair, the older boy muttered, “Yeah, well, it was either steal painkillers or let you suffer just because that bitch of a nurse was punishing you for the company you keep.”

The confusion on Q’s face could have been because he didn’t quite follow James’ meaning, or it could’ve been because it was early and Q was just easily confused in the morning. Either way, before questions could be formulated, James coaxed and chivvied Q into getting ready for the day, so that the two of them were leaving the dormitory while many of the other boys were just starting to rouse. Q trotted along at Bond’s heels faithfully as they headed to breakfast.

Q fully woke up at around the same time they both sat down in their usual places on the window-ledge. He startled when James pressed an extra apple into his hands, and then looked around as if registering the whole world for the first time. James couldn’t help but chuckle, which drew big hazel eyes to him. “Awake now?” the blond-haired boy joked. Q made a face at him and started eating, and that was the point in which the last knot of anxiety left James’ shoulders; he was reassured that things were all right. It was a quieter morning, with less of Q’s chatter, but considering the stress and discomfort of last night, James couldn’t blame Q for being a bit more subdued as he got some food into him. 

As usual, James wolfed his food down first, Q still not having learned that eating slowly was like asking someone to steal it - then again, since Q only ate with Bond around as a guard-dog, perhaps he’d never have to learn that. It warmed something proud and protective on Bond’s heart just thinking of that, and he leaned back against the side of the window, soaking in the morning sun and lowering his eyes to a restful half-mast. 

The contented feeling was broken by Q murmuring, “James,” in a voice that was wholly alert and uneasy. The older boy snapped his eyes fully open, brows lowering in silent question. 

Q glanced past James’ right shoulder, towards the direction of the dining hall proper, but quickly went back to picking at a piece of toast-crust. “That girl.... Vesper… she’s been watching you since we sat down.”

Most people would have whipped around to see for themselves, but James held very still, just watching Q’s face instead. “Watching both of us?” he asked quietly.

Pushing his glasses further up his nose, Q shook his head and frowned. “No, just you.”

“Is she talking to people around her?” James asked next, trying to get a feel for the situation without giving away that he was aware of any of it. Dealing with kids at St. Joseph’s - especially older ones, like Vesper - was like playing a dangerous game at all times, and one of the rules was not to be obvious about it. That would be akin to showing fear. 

Q shook his head again, and kept picking at his food. “Is that good?” he asked after a beat, looking up through his fringe of dark hair.

James took a bite of toast as he considered, finally giving the simple truth after swallowing, “Usually, I’d say yes, because around here, most bullies are too afraid to act on their own - so having just one person fixating on you isn’t dangerous until they bring in a posse. With Vesper, though…” James huffed out a sigh and shrugged. “She’s plenty dangerous when she’s not being _weighed down_ by anyone else.”

“What are you going to do?” 

“For now…” Chewing at the inside of his cheek for a moment, James finally picked up his tray and swung his legs off the ledge, saying decisively, “Nothing. But later, I’m going to show you all of the ways to slip out of St. Joseph’s, and where to find Alec, in case you’re ever stuck here on your own and need an escape route.”

~^~

Since it was Sunday, and St. Joseph’s was named after a saint, all of the kids were required to go to church. It was boring as hell for most all of them, but misbehavior was not tolerated, and James had accepted it as a necessary evil long ago. Today, with Q at his side, it was at least somewhat amusing - just as the drone of the priest began to lull Bond into a deathly boredom that made him think of the Biblical purgatory, he noticed Q scrunching up his little nose and frowning. When Q caught James looking at him, the kid leaned over, stretching to murmur in James’ ear, “I seem to know an awful lot about religion, but I don’t think I like it.” This new little fact about the amnesiac was so unexpectedly amusing that James nearly got into trouble for laughing. 

After that, since James didn’t have work and the kids were spared many of their usual chores on Sundays, James got to work fulfilling his promise: showing all of the ins and outs of St. Joseph’s Home. It was an old and expansive building (series of buildings, actually, most connected by drafty walkways or hallways), with all manner of alternative routes, or doors and windows with flaws that James had learned early on to exploit. He had an eye for things like that. If he was in a room, he liked to pass the time by imagining all of the possible ways to escape it, and that mindset meant that there was virtually no way to keep him in St. Joseph’s if he didn’t want to stay. In fact, he probably would have just up and run away if it weren’t for truant officers in the nearby town always on the lookout for just that - plus, running away would have meant leaving Alec behind, and James had too few friends to abandon any of them. 

Now he had another one, Q, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to abandon him if Vesper was winding up for some kind of trouble. Even if her interest had been turned towards just James, that didn’t mean Q wouldn’t be collateral damage.

They’d just slipped out a poorly-made window, James making the drop easily, Q hanging off the ledge and landing on his arse with an “_Oomph_!” Thankfully, this side of St. Joseph’s was thickly carpeted with grass and loam, so nothing but Q’s pride was hurt. 

“I can’t believe you do this all the time,” Q huffed, although the accusatory glance was directed at the window. As James expected, the window swung back into place, the tilted frame allowing gravity to do the work. If needed, James could get in that way, too, although sometimes people actually _did_ manage to latch it shut. “What are you, part cat?”

“Alleycat, maybe,” James admitted, secretly chuffed. Q’s berating was actually the closest thing to praise that he’d really gotten in his life, at least for this skill. “If you want to roam, it pays to be a bit athletic. And taller.” Q looked like he’d put on some height as he grew, but he certainly hadn’t hit any kind of growth-spurt yet. James smiled wider as he got a stroppy little glare for his final comment, but then relented to change the topic, “Come on. Enough slipping out of windows - let’s go see Alec. Getting out of St. Joseph’s whenever you need to won’t do much good if you have nowhere to go” 

Q immediately brightened. Even though it was a Sunday and therefore all of the children had a lot more free rein than usual, James still steered them towards the back of the property, so that they could slip away into the moors before circling back to town. Q was full of energy, so the trek would probably be good for him, and James enjoyed any excuse to step out into the open air - away from all of the people who had expectations of him. Well, except Q. But the expectations Q had… felt like ones that James actually wanted to try and live up to. 

The wall nearly stymied Q again, but the kid’s trust in James had only increased since the last time they’d tried this, so it took much less effort to coax the little boffin into being tugged onto, and then off, the stone wall. Q still landed in a terribly ungainly way on the other side, but he allowed Bond to steady him, and it felt like reflex to quickly check the kid over and make sure that nothing was strained or broken - Q protested instantly that he was fine, but that somehow didn’t stop the impulse. Realizing that he was being doting, James hid his embarrassment by extensively roughling Q’s hair, striding coolly away when Q squawked and batted at him. Everything was back to normal by the time Q caught up with James’ long strides, and the two of them began their leisurely journey around the perimeter of St. Joseph’s and back towards the town. 

They ended up talking geography along the way; Q didn’t know the area (which, despite Q’s amnesia, was surprising, since the kid seemed to know a bit of everything), but he was able to extrapolate a shockingly accurate mental map after asking James just a handful of questions about what _he _knew. James himself had been called stupid before - many times, in fact - but somehow, he didn’t feel too belittled by Q expressing his knowledge. Maybe it was because Q was clearly a prodigy, and practically anyone was an idiot comparatively; maybe it was because Q just seemed to love spouting knowledge for the pure joy of it, not because he wanted to rub James’ nose in it; or maybe it was because Q just seemed so damn happy to verbalize the things his amnesia hadn’t taken away from him. Needless to say, James didn’t stop Q from talking, and instead encouraged it at every turn.

Q was still a bundle of energy by the time they left the wilds and returned to civilization, but not so energetic that James was worried about him bolting out into traffic. So, with Q sensibly at his heels and now chattering about how CCTV worked, they headed through the town to progressively more posh houses. When Q suddenly stopped walking and talking, James paused and turned to him, frowning as he noted the absent look in Q’s eyes. He’d seen the expression before, most notably when they’d both ended up on dish-washing duty - it was a look that said Q’s mind was somewhere far away, and that he wasn’t fully aware of it. Sensing that this wasn’t something to interrupt, James nonetheless stepped closer. They were on a side-walk, with people moving by, so James angled his body to ensure that Q wasn’t bumped by anyway. This earned him a few curious glances, but the passersby decided to mind their own business. After a few moments, James carefully put a hand on Q’s shoulder, just in case this was some sort of episode that really should have him worried - that seemed to do the trick. Q blinked a few times, but seemed to come back to himself gently. “I don’t think I’m supposed to know what I know about the camera systems,” was his next whispered sentence, turning an anxious expression Bond’s way, “Or about electrical systems in general.”

Bond frowned, looked around, and then gently used his hand still on Q’s shoulder to ease him out of the flow of people. In a little alcove next to a closed business, James replied, “What do you mean?”

“I mean… I think I know how to tap into the CCTV footage. And how to reprogram intersection lights.” He sounded more than a little bit worried by this. 

If it were anyone else saying this, James would have laughed his head off, but this was the kid who’d been spouting professorial data at him practically since they’d met. Therefore, James took Q’s words in seriously, giving them the thought they deserved. When James didn’t reply immediately, however, Q’s uneasy looked became fully worried - and James belatedly realized that Q was _afraid _of what he knew. The little boy’s next words were proof of that, “James, why do I know that? Good people don’t learn those things - _normal _people don’t learn those things-!” 

Q’s voice had been rising in pitch with anxiety, but before he could raise his volume, too, James lifted his other hand to Q’s other shoulder. “Hey, hey, shhhh,” he tried to soothe as best he could, having no clue whether he was doing it right because no one had done it right for him since he was basically eleven. He remembered his parents getting down to his level, though, so he crouched a bit and made sure that his eyes and Q’s were of a height. That felt like the right thing to do, and he very desperately wanted to do the right thing at this moment, faced with Q’s big, troubled eyes. “Just because you know this doesn’t mean you’re bad,” he reassured first, then just let slip the next thing that came to mind, “and as for what normal people know, I happen to know a lot of things that also aren’t _normal, _so I can’t judge you, okay?”

Miraculously, something in that response seemed to work. Q gave a little sniff that said he’d been perilously close to tears just a moment ago, without James fully realizing it, but then responded with an unsteady little, “Really?”

“Q, you’ve hung out with Alec and me - you already know that we fight and we gamble. I could tell you stuff about either of those hobbies that people twice my age don’t know.” James straightened, but kept his hands on Q’s shoulders. “So we can be weird together, okay?” He’d have been embarrassed by the tiny edge of begging in that last question, but honestly, he just really, really didn't want Q to cry. 

Giving another sniff but also a nod, Q cheered up somewhat. “Okay.”

Wanting to further brighten the mood, James added, “And hey, a memory is a memory, right? You just remembered something.”

_That _had Q’s attention snapping up to him instantly, and after a beat, a huge smile replaced the previous look of unease. “I did!” Q exclaimed loudly enough that a few people looked at them, but thankfully just kept walking. A few older couples even smiled at the two youths. 

Usually, James would have been self-conscious about that, but Q’s enthusiasm and happiness was infectious. So the older boy ended up allowing a small smile to slip forth. He pushed his fingertips up under Q’s wild mop of hair, briefly and playfully revealing where Q’s head injury was rapidly healing into a shiny pink scar. “Pretty soon you’ll be remembering all kinds of things,” he reassured, and felt his heart skip a beat as Q just smiled and hummed in response, pushing up into James’ hand like an agreeable cat. It was rare that James ever did things that actively pleased people - and rarer still that they were simple, easy things. The blond-haired boy had plenty of memories where he completed complex tasks or impressive feats, and yet Q’s smile and nuzzling head was honestly the most blatant appreciation he could remember. And all he’d done was say a few words and touch Q’s head. 

James felt his throat close up, and he was glad that Q hadn’t asked him any questions, because it took a few moments before he felt like he could speak. Clearing his throat, uncomfortable and inexplicably warm on the inside, James looked around as if regaining his bearings. “Come on. It’s still a ways to Alec’s place.” 

~^~

His _feelings _mostly under control again, James led the way right up to the Trevelyan front steps, where he knocked on the door… only to have it answered by Mrs. Trevelyan instead of Alec, like expected. With a jolt of awareness, James realized that today was Sunday, meaning Alec’s parents were probably actually home for once. He’d gotten so used to them being absent that it had felt like Alec lived in this house alone. Therefore, it took James a second to recover, even as the woman - older but full of energy, hair going platinum instead of grey, lipstick a few shades too pink - greeted them, “Oh! Why, good morning, Bond! I didn’t expect to see you on our doorstep today! And who is this?”

Q, without any cue from the slightly-stunned James, slid conspicuously behind James, so that only about half of his body was peaking out. Realizing that Q was just one heartbeat away from sidling right up under his arm, James recovered himself quickly. It was natural to slip into an upper-crust British accent, as posh as the Queen’s own men, “Good morning, Mrs. Trevelyan! Or is it evening already? I neglected my watch when I went out.” A blatant lie; James didn’t own a watch. He managed to move an arm behind Q’s back, even though the kid was starting to stick to him with Velcro tightness. Pushing Q forward a little, James flashed his most charming smile and answered the final question, “And this is Q, a new friend of Alec’s and mine.”

While Alec’s mother was quite forgetful about a good many things in her son’s life, James had learned that she (and her husband) had quite a memory for names and faces - so the upside to introducing Q to her now was that she’d probably let him into the house without question if he ever turned up on her doorstep. If she were ever introduced to a serial killer, she’d probably do the same thing. Now, Mrs. Trevelyan just gave an absent but polite, “So nice to meet you, dear!” and then _insisted _that they come in for tea. Alec was apparently out, but expected back soon. The fact that Mrs. Trevelyan didn’t name a precise task that Alec was doing, or when he’d be back, indicated to James that she didn’t quite remember what he son was doing. Unfortunately, there was no way to leave now without being impolite, and if there was anything that the Trevelyan parents cared about, it was keeping up polite appearances. Mrs. Trevelyan perhaps didn’t notice when he son came home bruised from fighting, but she noticed when someone didn’t drink their tea correctly. James looked over at Q, hoping that the kid would be able to keep up; even James himself had had a steep learning curve to overcome when he’d first started hanging out with Alec. Now, after having dealt with Mr. and Mrs. Trevelyan quite frequently, James felt comfortable faking it with even the most posh of the upper echelon, but would Q?

James needn’t have worried. 

Still a bit clingy, Q followed James into the sitting room, where they both perched side-by-side on a sofa that was perfectly matched with the rest of the decor but about as comfy as three sheets of tissue-paper on a piece of plywood. Mrs. Trevelyan talked constantly about nothing as she moved around, getting tea and a plate of biscuits, saying at least three times that she wished she’d known Alec had visitors coming so that she could’ve been more hospitable. She called at least twice for Alec, forgetting that she’d said he was out. She did the same for Mr. Trevelyan, but only once, before saying that he was out golfing with friends. James was used to these conversations, and inserted all of the correct commentary, all the while keeping up his accent flawlessly. He belatedly wondered what Q had to think of all this, but before he could come up with a subtle way to ask, the smaller boy actually entered the conversation. 

Somehow, in the time he’d gotten to know Q, James had stopped paying attention to Q’s own accent - which was also very posh, and fit in perfectly now. Q’s polite, short answers gave James pause, though, because Q was nothing if not a wordy little bird - now, though, the boffin was subdued. He responded but didn’t start conversations; he said “Thank you” right on cue for everything; and he interacted with all of the perfect aplomb of a little lord in the presence of his betters. Mrs. Trevelyan was clearly delighted by it, and James could instantly see that the older woman saw Q as an adorable little doll - which, honestly, was exactly how Q was acting. It was honestly unsettling, compared to the voluble, emotive person that James had gotten to know. 

Teatime was a necessary evil, and eventually the torture ended, and James and Q were told that they could wait for Alec in his room if they wanted to. Since James was pretty sure that Alec would be back eventually, and because Mrs. Trevelyan always crafted orders in the shape of requests, the blue-eyed boy was soon leading the way deeper into the house, Q in tow. 

Once in Alec’s room, James leaned back against the closed door, and took great pleasure in switching out his posh Englihs accent for a heavy Scottish one. “So. Fucking. Boring,” he said, closing his eyes for a moment. Q was still uncharacteristically quiet, though, so James quickly opened his eyes again and asked, “You all right there, Q?” 

Before James could find a way to explain (to explain the weirdness that was the Trevelyan family, to explain his accent switching, to explain that they could escape out the window if Alec wasn’t back soon), Q folded his skinny arms and mumbled something down towards his shoes. James frowned. “What was that?” he prompted Q to repeat.

More cleary, but still quietly, Q’s sentence came again, “Remember that I said I think my parents are like Alec’s parents?”

James just nodded, still frowning. 

Q’s head lifted. He looked troubled, and his mouth moved a few times before he slowly stated, “My parents… I know that they’re _exactly_ like that.” Finally his eyes met Bond’s fully and finished, “But mine make better tea.”

Caught off-guard, James didn’t know how to react. He wanted to feel multiple things at once: sad and angry that Q’s parents were anything like Mrs. Trevelyan, elated that Q was recalling more and more things about his life, and deeply amused that Q was judging Mrs. Trevelyan’s tea. He settled with grabbing onto the second emotion, smiling. “That’s great, Q! That you remember, I mean. What else do you recall?” 

James’ bright mood wavered as he watched Q’s expression fall. But then, at the last second, James remembered something: “Do you remember the name Mycroft?” 

Q’s head snapped up so fast that it was a miracle he didn’t jar his spectacles. “Mycroft?” he echoed back, and James bit his tongue and waited as Q’s eyes took on that glassy, faraway look again - which James was definitely starting to associate with Q peering past the wall of amnesia. When the kid came back, it was to say with tentative hopefulness, “I… Yes, I do know that name. I’m not sure how… How do _you _know Mycroft?”

“I don’t.” James shook his head. “You said the name early this morning, still mostly asleep. Who is he?”

Shoulders sinking, Q sighed, “I don’t know, actually. But…” He shrugged and sighed, clearly resigned to the haphazard nature of his memory. “But I know I know him. His name makes me feel really annoyed, actually… but in a happy way?”

James chuffed a laugh and finally moved away from the door to sit on Alec’s bed. The room was quite clean, but only because the Trevelyan’s hired a maid. If it were up to Alec, the room would look like a disaster zone. James drew upon his knowledge of families to say wryly, “Mycroft is probably family then.”

“What did I say about him? This morning?”

“Only that he wasn’t your mum.”

Bouncing up onto the bed to sit next to James, Q snorted. “Well, that’s _terribly _helpful,” he quipped. Then he leaned a bit to the side, enough so that some of his weight was on his shoulder against James’. The older boy didn’t complain. “I now know that I have very posh parents who make good tea, and that my mother’s name is _not_ Mycroft.”

“And that you have brothers,” James reminded, “You said that before, too.”

Both looked up sharply as the door opened - but thankfully, it was only Alec, his familiar roguish grin already in place. He apparently had heard the last bit of information, as he was quick to chime in, “Brothers are overrated. James and I don’t have siblings, and we’re gotten on fantastically.”

James snorted, but resisted the urge to point out that he and Alec were not exactly poster-children for well-adjusted individuals. It warmed James’ heart when Q didn’t comment on that either, instead just smiling shyly at Alec - a silent greeting. Immediately, Alec’s expression softened a bit, too, and the green-eyed young man moved on smoothly to ask, “So, how’s my favorite genius amnesiac doing?”

Either Q was in a really good mood, or he’d finally gotten over his last reservations about Alec, because immediately the boffin was grinning and hopping off the bed. He trotted right up to Alec and then, to Alec’s great surprise, latched onto his middle in a hug. Arms in the air as if afraid to touch, Alec shot a frankly horrified look James’ way - who was trying not to laugh. “Meeting your mother triggered some memories,” James said, _sotto voce_, to explain Q’s enthusiastic greeting.

“Most useful thing my mum’s ever done,” Alec deadpanned back in a voice that was still a bit shocked. Undeterred by the fact that his hug hadn’t been returned, Q let go and bounced back, smile still all over his face. “So,” Alec tried to recover, “is this just a social visit, or were you here for my mother’s fantastic tea?”

Feeling feisty, apparently, Q immediately turned and cocked a silent brow Bond’s way. It was an expression that, to James, translated perfectly to, ‘_What fantastic tea?_’ 

Because James was a good friend, he raised an eyebrow back but said to Q with mock sternness, “_No._”

Q just shrugged, giving a little sniff and putting his nose in the air, as if to say, ‘_My silence does not make her tea better_.’ However, he politely refrained from insulting another person’s tea-making skills out loud. 

“Just showing Q where you live, so that he can find his way here if he’s ever in trouble and I’m not around,” James was the one to finally speak up, putting on one of his charming smiles and standing. 

Alec, of course, saw right through it and frowned, focusing instead on the exchanged glances that he hadn’t been able to interpret. “Okay, smart, but-” James had already stepped past him towards the door. This entire encounter had been flustering, and the usually silver-tongued Alec was left in the unique position of being at a loss for words. He snapped at James as the other youth walked past him out of the room, “Hey! What was with the looks you two were sharing?”

As always, Q was James’ shadow, trailing after him. However, the smaller boy did pause to look up at Alec with the most cherubic little smile, robbing Alec of his words yet again. “It was nothing,” Q chirped brightly. Then he reached out and grabbed Alec’s hand, tugging him along after them. Unresisting, Alec followed, and the three left the Trevelyan residence and headed back out onto the streets of Livingston.

~^~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that those of you who previously mentioned Alec's parents enjoyed this little glimpse of Mrs. Trevelyan ;) And hat's off to those who had been making guesses about Q's backstory!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q wants to investigate his own clouded past, and convinces James to help him. In all fairness, it doesn't take much convincing...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Or, another chapter in which James can't say "no" to a damn dustbunny... a damn cute amnesiac dustbunny.

James could hardly remember a more enjoyable Sunday. The weather was lovely, they managed to avoid the topic of Mrs. Trevelyan’s tea, and Q was so abuzz with happy energy in the wake of his recent memories (which were excitedly relayed to Alec) that the two older boys didn’t get any chance to get bored - which was what usually happened, and why the two of them so often ended up sneaking into gambling dens and locations that allowed boys their age to fight for money. It made for an unexpectedly mild, nonviolent evening, and despite the fact that all they did was walk around, talk, and eventually grab food, it was… more fulfilling than just about any recent memory James had.

Alec might have noticed. As James and Q made to head back to St. Joseph’s for the evening, Trevelyan hooked an arm over James’ shoulders in a companionable fashion. The other teenager grunted at the weight being suddenly leaned against him, but kept his eye on Q, who was strutting along a bit ahead of them, gesturing wildly as he expounded upon the future of computers. He refused to startle when Alec unexpectedly murmured next to his ear, calm but serious, “You probably already know this, but I’m going to say it anyway, because sometimes you can be a really stupid bastard, James.” There was a significant pause, in which James kept his mouth shut and just listened, because Alec was not known for speaking somberly like this. “That kid needs you-”

Now James interrupted, with a tetchy, “I know that.”

But Alec wasn’t finished, and went on determinedly, “Yes, but do you know that you need him, too?”

James could only stare straightforward and blink, his thoughts all crowding up behind Alec’s words like a train hitting the side of a mountain. Seeing that his point had been made, Alec gave James’ shoulder a slap, and then peeled away, calling out for Q to hear now as well, “All right, well, I’ve got to get back before my folks lock the door.”

Oblivious to the fact that James was still in a state of total mental turmoil, Q turned around and eyed Alec, noting shrewdly, “I thought you regularly came in and out via your window?”

Alec’s grin was a bit wincing. “Yeah, well, sometimes my folks are oblivious, but sometimes they’re not. My mother just planted a rose-bush beneath my window.”

“Your parents have a strange way of showing they care,” was what Q decided to say next.

Now it was Alec’s turn to be a bit caught off-guard. He ended up lifting a hand to scrub it through his hair, puffing out a breath through his nose as he was forced to consider that. “I never thought of it that way. I don’t know,” he said, shuffling his feet awkwardly.

“I could be wrong,” Q said with a shrug, the gesture smooth and free, the movement of a boy who was at ease in his mind for a change, “But I just thought of it that way myself, and who knows - I could be right?”

“You could be,” Alec could be heard to murmur to himself, as James and Q paired up to head back towards St. Joseph’s, leaving their third party member with these new thoughts. It was strange, sometimes, what insight a boy with amnesia could offer.

~^~

It wasn’t really that late yet, but Q, James, and Alec had eaten early, so they were in the unique position of being back at St. Joseph’s as everyone rushed to the dining hall - but felt no need to follow the mass migration of orphans. Somehow, despite the day spent walking all around town, Q was more full of energy than before. James found out why not long after they passed the dining hall, heading to nowhere in particular.

Q spun suddenly to face James in an empty hallway, eyes wide and intense behind his glasses. “James, I think that I can find out where I came from! On my own!” he blurted. When James, startled (Q seemed to be repeatedly catching everyone off-guard today), just blinked and stared at him, Q became more hesitant, fiddling with his glasses. “Well, maybe not on my own… but with your help?”

“I… sure,” James found himself saying without really giving his mouth permission. The words just fell out, although after they were out in the open, he couldn’t see any reason to retract them. He’d already punched someone in the face for Q, and probably would do a lot more if it would make this dustbunny of a person happy. 

James realized then that he was so, so whipped. He wasn’t sure when it had happened.

Rocking up onto his toes and back down onto his heels in delight, Q then looked around them warily. Two small hands snaked out and grabbed James’, and Q dragged the older boy into an empty room before he spoke more. Like this was a conspiracy, Q leaned up on his tiptoes to whisper near James’ ear... or tried to. Q really was lamentably short, so James took pity on him and leaned down a bit to meet the boffin halfway. “I need to get into St. Joseph’s files. And a computer.” 

Twisting his head to stare at Q in bewilderment, James replied after a beat, “Okay, you’re going to have to back up and walk me through your thought process here.” He had some clues as to where Q might be going with this, but wanted to know just how Q foresaw these requests fitting in to his search for his past - and where exactly James fit in. 

Q and James had built up a good enough rapport that Q was neither offended nor frustrated by the need to elaborate, and unlike many people in James’ life, didn’t make it feel like Bond was stupid for needing the clarification. The kid simply nodded and started talking, gesturing a little with his hands as he spoke, “From what I know about myself so far, I’m very good with computers - and I can extrapolate a lot from disparate data, like when we were talking outside St. Joseph’s walls.” Instead of commenting on Q’s use of big words like ‘extrapolate’ and ‘disparate,’ James merely nodded, clearly recalling how Q’s brain seemed uniquely capable of building anything from scrap. “And whenever I get little clues about myself, I can _feel _how close I am to figuring it out!” Q’s hands formed little fists and he pressed them against either side of his head, momentarily overcome by frustration. James reached out, wanting to comfort but not knowing how (he had no practice), and ended up just lightly stroking the fingertips of one hand against one of Q’s elbows. Maybe it worked, because Q dropped his arms and relaxed again, returning to talking, “I think that if I just _knew more _about myself, then I’d be able to put it all together like a puzzle - even if I didn’t actually remember anything.” 

“And to find out more about yourself…?”

“I’ll need to see my files,” Q finished the sentence naturally. He looked so determined, this little boy who would perhaps never regain his memories, but wanted to see the picture of his life anyway. Just one glance in Q’s painfully candid eyes told James that, to Q, the truth was what he needed… even if he felt like a stranger looking at it. 

James’ mouth moved without permission again, but once more, he saw no reason to stop: “I’ll help you get your files. I expect the computer is for you to do more research based on what you find?”

“Exactly.”

“There’s a computer in the front office, where I know they also keep files of everyone here,” James said with a nod. A plan was already solidifying in his head, all thoughts of risks pushed aside. “They don’t let any of us touch that stuff, but I can get us back there. Tonight, probably.”

For once, it was Q’s turn to look stunned. He stood and stared up at Bond, wide-eyed, like a child viewing the moon for the first time. “You can? You will?” he finally stuttered out. 

There was a little voice in the back of Bond’s head, screaming that he, James Bond, was _not _helpful, was _not _reliable, and above all shouldn’t be trusted unless his own interests were at stake. But the voice sounded a lot like every stranger that had ever taken James home and then failed to keep him - and right now, the only voice that he wanted to hear was Q’s. “Yes,” he said simply, and without a flicker of hesitation.

~^~

Q was so excited about the plan that James ended up dragging him back out into the moors again - because otherwise, someone was either going to ask what in the world was going on to get the kid so hyped up, or else get annoyed with Q and start trouble. Attention was the last thing they needed right now, and with Vesper still a valid threat, going on another little jaunt seemed wise. Q nearly got up and over the wall himself this time, although when he tried to get down off the wall without help, he chickened out halfway, so that he was hanging by his arms, little fingers desperately gripping the stone. James had sighed, watched for a moment, then had shaken his head and come forward to grab Q’s hips and help him down. Acting very much like a ruffled cat, Q gave Bond a crisp ‘thank you’ that even Mrs. Trevelyan would’ve been proud of, and then strode off as if nothing had happened. With an amused snort, James followed, and eventually took the lead once Q realized that he didn’t know where they were going. 

James took them back to the little depression in the ground with its soft grass, easy slopes, and gnarled old tree. James immediately settled down at the base of it, content to watch Q scamper around until the kid tired himself out - although, since he’d been expecting Q to crash all day, perhaps it simply wasn’t going to happen. Q had boundless energy at the oddest times.

Surprisingly, though, Q immediately came up to him and flopped down. James had had his legs bent, and now he had a boffin using his shins and feet as a backrest. Instinctively, he opened his mouth and tensed his muscles to verbally and physically shake Q off, but never ended up following through; the impulse simply died away, like a fire on its last coal. 

Q twisted his head to stare back over James’ knees, fixing the older boy with intelligent hazel eyes. James was beginning to appreciate just how much of a genius Q was, and it was honestly terrifying on a certain level; on other levels, Q remained as unassuming as a cottonball. James idly wondered if Q’s family had ever truly appreciated the dichotomy that was Q. “I just realized,” Q started to say, mouth tipping down at the edges a bit, “that I could have just asked an adult to let me look at my own file.”

Now James tensed again. He felt his jaw clench, as if it were suddenly holding a growl in place. The thought of Q going to those prats that ran St. Josephs, instead of him, awoke something possessive and bitter in James’ chest. He kept quiet, though, recognizing that it was an ugly response, and one that Q didn’t deserve to have shoved in his face. Just because James had issues with authority figures didn’t mean that Q’s options should be limited. 

Surprisingly, though (after twisting a bit so that one of his shoulders was digging into James’ right shin and Q’s chin was propped on James’ knee), Q continued, “But I don’t think that they’d have helped me like you would. They barely want to give me pain meds.” While James tried to cope with the feeling of his heart basically exploding in his chest, Q pouted adorably and folded his arms. This made his bony self poke into James’ leg more, but the older boy barely noticed for once. “They treat me like I’m a baby!” Q complained.

“To be fair,” James found his voice, and managed to use sass to hide how insanely happy he was feeling, “you do resemble a baby crow.” Q’s pout immediately turned into a thunderous glare, but James just reached forward fearlessly and plucked at locks of Q’s hair, amending, “Or, at least, _this _looks like a crow’s nest.”

It devolved from there. Q swatted at James’ hands with a squawk, James noted that that sound just made him more baby-crow-like, Q immediately retaliated by trying to leap right over James’ knees to get back at him - and the two of them ended up in a tangle on the grass. James was laughing uproariously without any awareness of when he’d initially let the laughter loose, although Q tried to stay indignant. When James easily flipped them so that he had Q pinned to the mossy ground, that changed quickly, as Q’s ribs proved very, very ticklish. James himself had been tickled before, of course, although most of his memories of the experience included uncomfortable shadows of vulnerability - someone pressing hard fingers into the soft spaces between his ribs, finding points between enjoyment and pain until a sound came out of him. Maybe that was why James was so gentle, keeping a close watch over the strength he had in his older, larger frame, even as Q let loose peels of laughter that didn’t sound the slightest bit panicky or forced. Careful of those vulnerable spaces between Q’s ribs, the softness of his belly, and even the fragility of his young, thin bones, James kept up the gentle onslaught until Q was basically out of breath, then fell back to sit on his heels. 

Q remained stretched out on his back for a bit longer, panting and smiling, before eventually saying quite lightly, “I don’t think my brothers did that for me either.” He didn’t seem too torn up about it, so James didn’t press the subject. Hopefully, by tomorrow, they’d have answered enough already. There was no need to shatter the good mood now. 

~^~

They returned before curfew, not wanting anyone to notice anything out of the ordinary. They prepared for bed like usual, and if anyone noticed that Q was a bit more jumpy and jittery than usual, nothing was said - and certainly no one asked if it was excitement over an impending midnight heist. James himself was a bit more practiced at hiding his true feelings, although he was starting to feel the deep, growing kick of adrenalin, too. He was about to break into the main office and loose a small prodigy on St. Joseph’s files and computer. 

Specific plans had been hashed out while still out on the moors, away from prying eyes and listening ears. The set-up was simple, really. They would wait until everyone was well and truly asleep, and then James would lead the way to the main office and do the illicit work of getting them inside. From there, he’d be able to show Q where the computer and files were, but it would then be up to the kid to show his genius and make use of those things. From what James had heard of Q’s excursion at the library, it sounded like Q would absolutely devour his written file, and then make the computer dance to his tune just as quickly. The only real risk was of people finding them. That would be James’ task to worry about, so he’d keep watch until Q was done. 

On the top bunk, James could veritably hear Q vibrating with impatience, and it made the older boy smile involuntarily. Sometimes it was nice to be reminded of what normal children did. James, being abnormal, had learned patience early on out of necessity - because when people saw that you were eager for something, they used it against you. James stopped smiling as he remembered one foster mother who had noticed him jittering with anticipation for lunch, and had delayed the meal to make him wait; the teacher who had seen James looking at the clock, and had extended his detention as a result. Perhaps the correlation between James’ impatience and the adults’ actions were misplaced, but that didn’t change the fact that James had responded by hiding all signs of eagerness, impatience, or interest as a result. People, he’d found, were more likely to give him things when they thought those things meant nothing to him. 

As a result, it took little effort for Bond to lie down on his bunk, find that quiet, slow, cold place in his mind where time didn’t matter, and settle down to count the hours. Since his parents' deaths, James had had control over precious little in his life, and it ate away at him like gnawing teeth at his core - but the more he could control his own actions, the better he felt. 

“Make it a game, Q,” James called up to the top bunk on impulse, softly, when he continued to hear the younger boy tossing and turning. When he heard Q pause to listen, James continued to explain the game he’d been playing for years, learned through trial and error, “How deep inside of yourself can you go?”

James had no idea if Q found this suggestion strange, or even if the little boffin understood it, but one way or another, Q didn’t respond - and was a bit less restless after that. James, a veteran at sinking deep within himself where no one else could go or control, closed his eyes and settled on what he thought of as ‘one-quarter depth.’ Shallow enough that he still heard and felt the world around him, but deep enough that he didn’t feel the pressing, buzzing, itching need of his body to _move_. It was like resting, but more alert… safer. 

Slowly, around them, the hustle and bustle faded down, the lights went off. The boys’ dormitories settled into sleep. Still James waited, and he was mildly impressed when Q didn’t immediately pop over the side of the bed to whisper at him if it was time to move yet. He’d told Q to wait for him to give the go ahead, but hadn’t honestly expected the kid to listen - but no, it seemed like Q was being as obedient as can be, quiet on the bunk above. Impressed, James returned to smiling, even as he slitted open one eye to watch the ticking of the clock. 

Q lasted an hour like that. Then: “James?” A fluffy shadow appeared, poking over the edge of the bed. The faint glint of glasses indicated Q’s eyes on Bond, no doubt full of questions. 

“Go lay back down, Q,” James murmured back up. If anyone overheard, it sounded like a normal phrase. Seeing Q wilt, no doubt misinterpreting this as James doubling back on his word and cancelling tonight’s foray, James struggling to find better words that would convey his meaning without actually saying anything incriminating out loud. He settled on, “Just trust me.” The words felt strange and unwieldy on his tongue - not because he had never said them before. Oh no, James Bond had said those words plenty. The thing was, he’d always said them with a knife behind the syllables and a fake smile on his face. Now, though, his mouth most in a more hesitant smile, aiming for encouraging, and the sincerity behind his words made them feel strange. 

Something in James’ chest wound up tight and didn’t unclench until he heard Q whispered a relieved little, “Oh. Okay!” and then pop out of sight again. Message delivered, James settled down again, but found something a bit more relaxed in his soul; finding stillness was less of a struggle than before, and felt more... natural. Like the stillness of a fed cat rather than the stillness of a rabbit awake at night. 

James waited until midnight before deciding that everyone was definitely deeply asleep, and even the bunks nearest them wouldn’t be roused by movement. Only then did the blue-eyed boy slide out of bed and hiss up to the top bunk, “Q?” He half expected Q to have actually fallen asleep in the meantime, but no, a beat later there was a fluffy head appearing - perhaps a bit more rumpled, but definitely awake. James just gave his head a jerk to indicate that they were going, a finger to his lips to encourage silence. Q, bless him, obeyed with a rapid nod and did his best to silently climb down. The kid was so eager, though, that he nearly slipped twice. Thankfully, James was getting pretty used to Q’s clumsy climbing skills, and it was reflex to reach up and steady the smaller body. Once they were both on the ground, James met Q’s eager, brightly attentive eyes, and all it took was another gesture of his head to have Q at his heels. Like a shadow after a flame, Q wordlessly followed James out of the dormitory. 

It was strange to know that Q was with him, and yet hear none of the smaller boy’s chatter. James missed it, on a certain level, but for the most part he was relieved and impressed that Q had taken James’ instructions to heart: when they’d planned this, James had stressed the need for Q’s complete obedience and silence, at least until they got into the office. It seemed like Q had listened. Sticking doggedly to James, Q froze in place when he was told to, and if James took them down unexpected halls, no questions were asked. A glance back was needed just for James to assure himself that the kid was still _there. _Instead of looking frustrated by the necessary muteness, however, Q merely looked determined, eyes very focused behind his glasses. 

Things went smoothly until they reached the hallway leading to the main office. At that point, when James pressed a hand against Q’s shoulder, telling him to stay put while James rounded the corner to pick the lock on the door, Q suddenly lost his obedience. “No.” The argumentative whisper was paired with a small hand unexpectedly latching onto James’ sleeve. Admittedly caught off guard, because Q had been so well behaved until now, James probably had consternation all over his face as he turned around to meet Q’s stubborn expression. Without hesitation, though, the younger boy went on before James could speak first, “I know that you’re going out there first so that only you get caught if you’re seen, but I won’t have that.” Gone was the cherubic face, replaced now with a pugnacious expression, and Q continued in his fierce whisper, “This is my mission first, James. That means that you don’t get caught alone.”

Unsure whether to be impressed that Q was standing up to him or mildly disturbed that Q had guessed his motivations so easily (because that was exactly James’ reasoning for leaving Q temporarily behind while he went lockpicking out in the open), James could only crouch and frown for a moment. He even opened his mouth and couldn't get words out, and had to close it again. Alec would have gotten a real laugh out of this, James realized; it wasn’t often that James had his silver tongue tripped up. By a boy who was basically a cinnamon bun, no less. It was just plain embarrassing.

Perhaps that was why James didn’t argue - because the only thing worse than being read like a book by a cinnamon bun was arguing with a cinnamon bun. So, saving face, James just snapped his mouth shut and nodded. “Fine,” he belatedly gritted out, trying to maintain a facade of gruffness. “Keep watch, and keep out of the way.”

Once again agreeably silent now that he’d made his point, Q continued to fix James with those damnably determined eyes. Q still didn’t let go of James’ sleeve, though. Giving up on that, James got a move on anyway, trying to untangle how he felt about this. He knew that he should have been annoyed at Q insisting on getting in the way when he was told not to, but the truth was, Q wasn’t in the way… and it wasn’t every day that someone insisted that James not take punishment alone. 

The lock gave James a bit of trouble, but only because it was old. Q turned out to be a rather lamentable watcher, but only because he was fascinated by lockpicking, and spent more time staring at James’ work instead of the darkened hallway. Thankfully, the door opened before anyone chanced upon them. “In,” James urged in a whisper, swiftly picking up his tools and chivvying Q in ahead of him. Only once inside, door closed again (and locked, to prevent any surprises from that direction), did James relax, and begin putting his lockpick tools neatly away into their little packet. “Don’t turn the lights on,” he murmured without looking up from putting things away, hearing the shuffle of Q’s clothing in the dark room, “I know where they’ve got a torch stashed, just give me a moment.”

Q paused and obeyed, but James could all but sense his cocked head before the question came, “How do you know where they have a torch stashed? And how are you going to find it in the dark?”

Grinning a little but knowing that Q probably couldn’t see, James tucked away his last pick by feel and demurred, “I have my ways.” Tools stashed, James moved forward, aware of the room mostly because he’d been brought in here so often for stern lectures. He found Q’s head to give the kid’s hair a tousle as he moved past. “Don’t ask, Q. It ruins the mystery of it all,” he only half-joked. Sometimes, like with James’ fighting skills, it was best to just not ask how he’d learned them. 

Feeling Q immediately shuffle up behind him, sticking close like a burr as if afraid of being lost in the dark otherwise, James moved in the direction he was pretty sure the main desk was in. The front office was actually two rooms - the main room they were in now, with an imposing desk and two chairs, and the anteroom beyond where the files were. The torch and computer would be here. It was pretty dim in here, but nothing like being in solitary, so it wasn’t long before James was rifling through drawers and closing a hand around the cool cylinder of a torch. He flicked it on, but kept his fingers closed over it, so that only a warm pink light seeped past his skin and bones. 

Q, now visible as more than a fluffy-headed silhouette, eyed the covered light dubiously. “I’m not going to be able to read files that way without getting eye-strain,” he observed a bit grumpily.

Making a scoffing noise at how posh Q sounded at the idea of _eye-strain_ (whatever home-life Q came from, he was clearly a little spoiled, and it was adorable), James retorted, “I’ll take my hand off it once we’re in the back room, Q, don’t worry.”

Sniffing loftily like that was the least James could do for him, Q gave a little nod, and then strode off towards the room’s other door himself. Now that he could see, and James had alluded to ‘the back room,’ the kid was much more confident, and it made James want to smirk fondly. Instead, he bit the inside of his cheek to keep the expression in check and then got the keys from the desk - without that or James and his lockpicks again, Q wouldn’t be getting much further. Fortunately, they were soon in the musty-smelling backroom with all of its filing cabinets and cobwebs. 

After making a fastidious face that clearly showed his opinion on how St. Joseph’s Home took care of their filing room, Q was immediately in motion. It was honestly shocking how quickly the kid surveyed everything, and then began pulling open drawers with purpose. Almost before James could move, Q was calling him over, wanting more light on something in particular. James quickly obliged, although he kept his own head turned towards the door - and away from the torch when he shifted his hand out of the way of its beam. Only one of them had to lose their night-vision, he figured, and Q had no compunctions against grabbing James’ wrist to redirect the light however he wanted. So with James being the watchdog and _de facto_ ‘light bearer,’ Q began rifling through files like a hound on a scent. Soon he was muttering to himself, words quick and sharp, as if Q were having some sort of rapid argument with the files. From what James did catch, it sounded like St. Joseph’s had a filing system about as logical as mittens on a hedgehog. Clearly a defender of logic, Q was peeved. 

James had to remind him more than once that they didn’t have time for Q to reorganize all the files. 

When Q finally found his own file, though, his squeak of delight was so loud that James nearly dropped the flashlight. Then he used his other hand to cover Q’s mouth, hurriedly looking to the door and hoping that no one else had heard that. Q’s elation was undeniable, though, and his cheek and eyes showed that he was grinning beneath James’ palm. Despite being wary of more noise, James soon eased his hand away if only to see that smile - it was blinding enough that James’ breath caught for a moment. Then Q was dragging his file out of the draw and snatching the torch from James, plopping to sit on the floor for some of the fastest reading that he’d ever witnessed. 

‘_Things I now know about Q_,’ James added to the list in his head, ‘_He’s a speed-reader_.’

Q was also a judgmental little shit, it turned out. 

“These people are stupid,” Q growled not long after, his smile now transformed into an impressive glower. “How can they be so monumentally witless?”

James had repositioned himself at the door, so that he could look through the frosted window and listen for anyone entering the outside room. The possibility made him nervous, since there were no alternative exits if that happened. Mind on his task, James replied absently, “They’re probably just average, compared to you.” When the response he got was utter silence, the older boy turned to find Q just staring at him, that faraway look in his eyes again. “Q?”

“I think I’ve heard that before. Someone’s said that to me,” Q gave himself a little shake before answering. Then his nose wrinkled and he amended, “But in a more condescending tone, I think.”

“I’m beginning to think that you had a very strange home-life before this,” James observed. He found himself a bit jealous of it nonetheless, because strange though it may have been, it had still been a nice enough home-life to create the bundle of genius fluff that was Q. 

Already absorbed again in reading the writing of stupid (average) people, Q just hummed distractedly and fell silent again. He started muttering to himself off and on, and James heard something about a train, rainy weather, and “Why didn’t I have a coat? I would have had a coat…” James also heard Q murmur about his own injuries, and the blond-haired boy found his fists clenching reflexively into fists. He only heard bits and snatches as Q talked to himself, mulling things over aloud but in an undertone, but it was enough to light a righteous fire in James’ gut, the likes of which scared him a bit because he’d never felt anything like it - and he didn’t think he knew how to put it out, or even if he wanted to.

Then suddenly Q was snapping the folder closed again, stepping over the torch to put the file back where he found it. “Okay, now I need a computer,” he said in the same voice that James associated with someone saying, “Okay, now I need a knife.” 

“You got all that?” James raised a significant eyebrow and nodded towards the file, already disappearing as Q closed the drawer. 

“Photographic memory, remember?”

James really needed to keep a list of all the little impressive things that this kid could do. He merely raised both eyebrows and nodded, not questioning anymore. Once Q picked up the flashlight again (covering it with his hand just as James had - good boy), James opened up the door and led them back out into the front room. “We have to be quieter here,” James whispered, already feeling his tension rising. Even though he’d locked the door, this room had a window that made it visible from the hall. 

Already hopping up onto the chair in front of the hulking computer that dominated the room’s equally hulking desk, Q accepted that with a soft “Hmm” of noise. As soon as he found the appropriate buttons to turn the computer on, he also smartly turned the torch off. The light from the computer would be enough, although James worried about how visible the glow would be if anyone walked by the door. He thought he noticed Q poking a few more keys, and the screen dimming a bit, so maybe the kid had thought the same thing. James wandered by just enough to put the torch back in the desk drawer where it belonged, and then went back to standing alongside the door, guarding. The sound of the keyboard click-clack-clacking filled the room, Q’s fingers hummingbird fast, the dimmed light of the screen turning his spectacles into round pools of light. 

There was the urge to ask if Q was finding anything, but James kept his mouth shut. This was Q’s mission; James was there to keep him safe, nothing more. Talking would only cause trouble, and this was literally a piece of Q that James wasn’t a part of. He felt like Q was reaching beyond a veil - a veil that, to Q, was foggy and translucent, but to James was an opaque wall. His chest twisted uncomfortably, and he turned his focus more determinedly to what he could see and hear of the hallway. 

Just as James heard Q mutter something about, “Didn’t they even bloody _investigate-_?!” there was also the barest sound from the hallway. It wasn’t much, but James was used to going on high alert for ‘not much.’ 

Instincts howling, James strode towards Q and the computer. “Q, I think we’ve got to go.”

“Just one more minute,” Q pleaded, and damn it all, James was getting softer than he realized. Instead of arguing, the older boy drew in a deep breath, flexed his hands a few times restlessly, and then gave in with a nod. He wasn’t even sure that anyone was coming, it was just a sixth sense, something nameless making the hair stand up on the back of his neck. 

Thankfully, Q didn’t seem like he’d requested the minute idly - his typing and clicking increased exponentially it seemed, and he was most certainly pushing his speedreading skill to its limit. Even in the midst of his own anxiousness, James had to spare a moment to be awed, wondering how in the world he’d become friends with such a prodigy. James Bond did not make smart friends - he made tough friends, and he made necessary friends, or he made no friends at all. Yet here he was, teaming up with a pint-sized mastermind who was neither tough nor necessary.

Well.

Maybe he was necessary. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More very-loyal-geniusQ! \\(^u^)/ And James-feels!!! And me calling Q all sorts of strange, cute, fluffy names...!!! *supremely unrepentant about that*


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things go a bit sideways - for everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up for some more rough allusions to James' childhood after his parents died! Chapter ends on a fluffy, though <3

The moment that Q had whispered “Done,” James got them moving. He still had that anxious feeling in his gut, even though he hadn’t heard or seen anything to justify it. Thankfully, Q seemed to have picked up on James’ tense alertness, because he didn’t say anything - he just closed out of whatever programs he’d been in, did something complex that James didn’t understand but maybe was designed to cover Q’s tracks, and then shut the whole computer down again. 

The room was plunged into darkness, but James had been prepared for that, staring away from the computer’s brightness as much as he could so that his eyes were more ready for the dark. He reached out, surprised and pleased to find that Q had already been reaching for him in turn - at the briefest touch, small slender fingers had latched onto James’ hand. “Come on. We can talk about what you found later,” James assured in an undertone, before leading the way out. He paused as he unlocked and then cracked the door open, but when he saw no one, he ushered Q out before locking the door behind them - no need to raise any suspicions. There were enough windows around the St. Joseph’s Home to make the hallway less dark, and Q immediately took up watch whenever James turned his back, like an attentive little spaniel looking for birds. It was unaccountably heartwarming to have back-up like that. 

Just as James was shooing Q ahead of him, however, about to turn the corner back towards the boys’ dormitories, James heard a familiar, damning voice call out from behind them, “Oh, Jaaaaames?”

James instantly recognized Vesper’s voice, and he didn’t turn around or even think - he just reacted. And his first reaction was to push Q hurriedly around the corner, hoping that his own body had blocked the kid from sight thus far. Vesper’s voice had still been distant, perhaps around the bend, so she couldn’t see everything quite yet…? “Q, go,” he said, voice as quiet as he could make it even as his earlier tension increased to an actual fight-or-flight response. For Q, ‘fight’ would be a terrible option, so James was determined to ensure that Q was able to fly from there. “You promised that you’d be quiet and that you’d listen to me - so do both, now.”

The younger boy’s eyes were wide behind his glasses, and he opened his mouth as if to argue anyway, but James gave him another shove to get him moving, and then turned back out into the hallway they’d just come from. In the ‘fight or flight’ department, he was choosing fight. It made a good distraction, if nothing else, and god knew he was practised at it.

Not two heartbeats after James got Q out of sight, Vesper was rounding the corner at the other end of the hall. It felt a lot like a standoff, just the two of them facing each other down a dimly moonlit hall - until Vesper grinned, throwing off the grim mood. Already casting about in his head for something to say to her, to distract her, to make sure that she didn’t focus on anyone but him, James wasn’t prepared for her to suddenly look away from him… and behind her. 

“I told you, Mr. Suthord,” she said, even as the adult in question rounded the corner behind her. “Out when he’s not supposed to.” While James’ stomach dropped, realizing that this situation had just gotten a lot worse, Vesper cast a glance his way even as she finished talking to one of the men who hated James most, “And I bet that if you check his pockets, you’ll find lockpicks. I know what I saw.”

‘_Damn it all to hell,_’ James thought to himself, realizing that Vesper had just outmanoeuvered him. At least Q was gone, though. The kid had disappeared like a piece of down on a windy day, and James had never been so grateful to have someone abandon him.

Unfortunately, Vesper wasn’t done playing yet.

~^~

James was in solitary. Again. But for once, he wasn’t even thinking of the confinement or the dark, because he was scared to his very bones about Q - and there wasn’t a fucking thing he could do about it. 

James could probably have escaped Suthord if he’d really wanted to. It wouldn’t have been pretty and it probably would have ended with James being arrested for assault, but Suthord was not a man built for fighting - nor practised in it like James was. But Bond, hoping to keep himself out of trouble with the law, had played nice and done what he was told. Vesper had grinned all the while, and James had taken a certain amount of pride in blatantly ignoring her, even as he was ordered to turn out his pockets, thus revealing his lockpick set. Suthord was incandescent with anger, but James knew how this song and dance went: as predicted, Suthord yelled at him extensively, and then marched him off to solitary confinement just like always. All that mattered to James, though, was that Vesper followed obediently behind, playing her role as the good girl so well that Suthord didn’t even shoo her off. James wondered what her story had been, what she’d said to explain her own adventures in the halls, and how she’d learned what James was up to. Q’s name hadn’t come up, though, and that relaxed James significantly. 

That was his first mistake. 

Pacing back and forth in the cramped little room, James vowed to never go quietly ever, ever again, because the moment he’d gone into the room (resigned to it, accepting it, reminding himself that he’d lured trouble away from Q and would see the kid in the morning) Vesper had skipped up. Suthord had belatedly started chiding her, saying she should go back to bed, but Vesper dawdled just a few seconds more - just long enough to lean in and whisper so only James could hear, “I know that Quincy was with you, I just didn’t tell anyone else that. The brat and I can have a nice chat now, just the two of us, about just which one of us deserves your attention more.”

The words had hit James so hard that it almost physically took the wind out of him. Then he’d seen red, and charged forward with an honest-to-god roar. But Vesper (or more likely Suthord) had slammed the door in his face, the lock clicking into place before James could get out. Furious at Vesper for being a manipulative bitch (which he shouted at her, at length) and himself for being an absolute fool, James had completely broken from his usual habit of sullen, stubborn silence and had instead raised an unholy ruckus. He’d pounded on the door until it shuddered, and he didn’t even remember everything that he’d yelled. He eventually remembered someone - it sounded like Suthord - getting a word in edgewise and hollering that if James didn’t pipe down, he’d stay there even longer. That had finally speared through James rage, as he remembered that the longer he was in there, the longer Q was without him… and effectively alone with Vesper.

So angry and honestly scared that he was shaking, James had fallen silent and turned to pace instead. For once, he didn’t care if he bumped into things, part of him wishing that the pain was enough to distract him. Sometimes, the frustration boiled over, at which time he returned to the door and lost his cool again. The next time he tried to fight his way out, he actually escalated so far as to slam a shoulder into the door, snarling expletives that would make a sailor blush the whole while. No one bothered to tell him to shut up then, and James finally gave the door one last impotent punch (his hands were already throbbing with pain, the knuckles feeling hot and wet) before sagging against it, realizing that no amount of fury could get him out of this. “How,” he asked himself in a ragged, wrathful whisper in the dark, “could you be so fucking stupid?” 

Palms and forehead leaning against the immovable solidity of the door, James felt himself shake like he hadn’t since the first weeks following his parents’ deaths. He was realizing… that he could lose Q like this. He really could. Vesper was what St. Joseph’s had made her to be: she was vicious, she was smart, and if she wanted something, she had the tenacity to get it. Unfortunately, she’d decided that Q was ‘the one that got away’ since she hadn’t managed to completely beat him up in the loo, and that finishing the job _now_ would have the side-effect of getting James’ attention. She wasn’t exactly wrong on the latter account, as she definitely had James’ attention now. Growling low in his throat, James fisted his hands against the door, wondering if Vesper was really prepared for that ‘attention’ once James got out. 

If she had hurt Q… he realized that he was prepared to fucking murder her. The realization scared him a little, but not enough to make him push the thought aside. If he couldn’t distract himself from thoughts of Q being hurt, then he deserved to imagine some vengeance alongside that. 

Oddly enough, though, no matter how much reciprocal pain he promised himself that he’d rain down on Vesper… that didn’t reduce his fear one bit. It was crippling, and it hurt, and James pressed his forehead harder against the door with a furious, soundless snarl as he felt hot wetness press against the edges of his eyes. Fuck, he was not going to cry. He hadn’t cried in years, and it had never helped fix anything anyway. Crying never helped. Crying didn’t deter foster parents from hitting you, crying didn’t stop the larger children from bullying you, crying… crying didn’t bring anyone back. Fuck… Wet heat streaked down just one of James’ cheeks, as he involuntarily placed a thought of Q alongside his parents, cold and gone and unreachable. It wasn’t that he thought Vesper would actually _kill Q, _but… 

But James couldn’t finish that sentence, because deep down, he also knew that he and Vesper were alike. Sucking in a ragged breath and willing the tears to dry up, James forced himself to face the facts - to realize that he and Vesper were cut from the same cloth, and that was how he could predict her. It was also how he knew what she was capable of. She’d grown up rough, like he had, and if James was so easily considering murdering her now, he knew that her mind was capable of the same. She probably _could _kill Q, if she got it into her head that the pros and cons balanced out. James just hoped that she was too afraid of getting caught to do anything too extreme.

The problem was… it wouldn’t take something too extreme to leave Q extremely messed up. James knew that from experience. He’d been that small once.

Realizing that this thought-process was getting him nowhere, James let out a frustrated roar and pushed away from the door, returning to pacing. He didn’t even know how long he’d fucking been in here, except to say that the muscles of his legs actually burned a bit from pacing around, which was a new experience. By this point, even if the doors did miraculously pop open, he’d probably be too late to actually do anything-!

James’ internal tirade was stopped by the subtle click of a lock being disengaged. He spun in the dark, going from breathing hard to holding his breath, everything in him tensing like a cornered stag. When he heard the inner workings of the doorknob moving as it turned, he charged forward on instinct, even before he saw the first sliver of light that indicated access to the world beyond. He didn’t care what was on the other side of that fucking door, because _he _was determined to be on the other side of that fucking door.

But then it turned out that James did care, because an achingly familiar little voice hissed at him, “James! James, it’s me, Q!”

It took an incredible amount of effort to derail the momentum that he’d already built up, and even so, James did end up shoving right through the door and very nearly bowling the younger boy over. Perhaps part of James wasn’t all that interested in stopping, however, at least not until he had bent in a crouch and wrapped his arms around Q, pulling the kid in so close that James’ own tendons creaked a little. Q squeaked in his grip and flailed a bit like a kitten being picked up by an overeager toddler. “Fuck, Q, please tell me you’re all right,” James exhaled the words in a desperate breath right against Q’s neck. At some point, the usually proud blond had tucked his face in there, perhaps to hide his eyes from the comparative brightness of the outer room, perhaps just to smell the familiar, warm scent of _soap _and _boy _that was Q. James sank down to his knees and pressed in tighter until he could all but feel Q’s pulse. “I’m so sorry, fuck.” The words just kept tumbling out, all torn around the edges. Solitary always made him feel a bit raw and out of sorts, but this was on a whole new level. 

Q’s flailing had settled down, and the smaller boy had apparently accepted the impromptu glomping because he wasn’t trying to get out of it. In fact, James was aware of two hands patting his back a bit awkwardly. “I’m fine, really!” Q insisted. Then he started wriggling a bit. “But we’ve got to go! Alec can’t be a distraction forever.”

That managed to startle James into releasing his hold a bit, so that he could pull back and narrow his eyes at Q’s face. The kid did indeed look fine - not a visible bruise or scrape on him, at least, and his expression looked almost shockingly calm. That was good, at least… because for once, James didn’t have much calm himself. “Alec?” he echoed back in bewilderment.

Q nodded. For the first time, James realized that Q was wearing a backpack. “Yup,” he said, popping the ‘p’ in a smug sort of way. “As soon as I heard Vesper talking, I realized that things were about to get bad.” At James’ still-a-bit-stunned look, Q shrugged and elaborated, “You didn’t specify where I had to run, so I ran to Alec’s place. It was very late, but I was able to remember which room was his. I threw rocks at his window so I didn’t have to go through the rose-bushes.” 

James was honestly flabbergasted. He didn't know whether to sob in relief or laugh hysterically. But then he remembered that Q was _here _now, and apparently Alec was, too. “But, wait - you said that Alec was being a distraction?” 

Q slipped free of James’ grip, but only to then reach out and grab the older boy’s wrist - belatedly, James realized that no one else was here but them. Q tugged James away from the doorway, closing off the little room James had been in and locking it, in almost a repeat of what James had done last night in an attempt to cover their tracks. Still very calm and efficient, Q explained as he moved, “Yeah, he and I both agreed that it would be best if he did the heavy lifting on this plan.”

It seemed like James was doomed to just echo Q’s words back at him. “Plan?”

“I am apparently very good at planning,” Q confirmed without any discernible humility. 

“Apparently. So what was this plan?”

“ ‘Is’ - present tense,” Q corrected, then started pulling James towards the doorway. Q didn’t seem worried about anyone awaiting them beyond that point, although his boldness was explained a moment later, “Once Alec woke up and let me in, I explained what had happened, and that we had to rescue you. However, it was decided that that would not be possible unless we employed a bit of misdirection.”

“And that misdirection was…?” James was beginning to get a bit worried, but in an awed sort of way - not unlike when he’d realized that Q could count cards. 

The two of them were in the hallway now, which was almost suspiciously empty, despite the fact that some people should have been up and about by now - it appeared to early morning, perhaps just prior to breakfast. The fog would be thick on the moors. Like a little turtle with his backpack, Q continued to pull James along, replying like it was totally normal, “Alec came and sought out Vesper. He said that the best distraction would be if he turned up and started a very public fight with her, while I came and let you out.” While James just stared, stumbling a bit as the full scope of Q’s plan hit him, Q looked back over his shoulder with a wincing expression. “I _might_ have explained what an… unpleasant… person she was. Alec hates her now, and is a bit mad at both you and me for not telling him about her sooner.” 

‘_Holy fuck_…’ James muttered within the confines of his own head, beginning to realize that Vesper’s actions had somehow started a tiny apocalypse. He no longer had to consider what he himself would do to her, because he knew that Alec was capable of quite a lot of violence himself. The thing was, James had never quite considered Alec implementing that violence… for James. A bit humbled and unsure how to handle this, James just nodded dumbly in response to Q’s admission, and then trotted silently along after him as Q picked up the pace. Eventually, James recovered enough to grab the back of the backpack, causing Q to skid to a halt with a little disgruntled noise. “Let me carry that,” James said in an admonishing tone, trying to regain some of his tough exterior. The effect was rather ruined when, upon donning the backpack (it was surprisingly heavy), James realized that he still didn’t know why they had a backpack with them or where they were going. “So… what exactly is the plan from here? Besides Alec raising unholy hell somewhere else in St. Joseph’s?”

With the backpack removed, Q was a veritable dandelion tuft, light as a breeze as he continued to take the lead. Despite the lightness of the younger boy’s steps, however, his words were solemn as he turned around (skipping backwards and nearly tripping) and replied, “Alec and I decided that, in light of recent events, it was not wise for either of us to stay at St. Joseph’s. Even if Alec ‘teaches Vesper some manners’-” Q did finger-quotes and nearly tripped again; coordination in reverse was clearly not something the kid had. He turned around to walk forward again, but finished over his shoulder, “-Chances are very high that she will continue to get you in trouble, and physically threaten me.”

James gritted his teeth at that reminder, but couldn’t argue. Q was very astute.

Q’s astuteness was abruptly proven a moment later, as Q turned around again (presumably to explain further), and then suddenly looked from James’ face downwards - it took Bond a moment to realize that Q had caught sight of his hands. Belatedly, James looked at the appendages himself, detachedly noticing the ravaged state of his knuckles. “James, what did you do to your hands?” Q explained, clearly horrified. 

This was far from the first time James had split his knuckles, but even he was a bit shocked by the amount of damage he’d done to himself; he hadn’t even noticed. There was blood already drying all over the backs of his hands, where it had dripped towards his wrists, down his fingers. James wondered what the back of the door looked like… “I’ll tell you later, Q - right now, I need to know where the hell we’re going.”

Q clearly didn’t like being distracted from the topic, his frown making that very clear, but he reluctantly switched topics, “We’re going to the moors. I found out enough about myself that I think I can maybe get home - if you can get us to the neighbouring town without anyone dragging us back here instead.”

Shocked that Q had apparently learned something that impactful, James stopped walking for a few seconds. Then… Then, the only appropriate response seemed to be to nod in acquiescence and start following Q again. Only now did he realize that they were aimed towards the back door, where James had first taken Q over the wall and out to where no people ever bothered to look.

~^~

They fell quiet after that, except for James asking quick, hushed questions about what was in the backpack - apparently, enough to keep two youths alive on the moors for a day or two, if one of those youths was also a bit of a survivalist. They needn’t have moved with stealth, however, as it was increasingly clear that _everyone _in St. Joseph’s Home was checking out the fight. James hadn’t heard or seen anything, the home being quite large and Alec having obviously picked a remote location to get the ball rolling, but once they were outside, he thought he saw smoke exiting a window on the south wing… 

Seeing James pausing and looking, Q tugged on his sleeve to get him moving again, reassuring, “Alec will be all right. He said that his parents hate prolonged scandals, and that St. Joseph’s Home can’t hire lawyers like the Trevelyans can.” Another tug, and James met Q’s eyes, which were too open and trusting for him to comfortably meet… although he tried anyway. “He also said that it would be worth it, because he wanted to prove to you that someone _would _stick their neck out for you, no strings attached.”

James’ heart was doing funny things in his chest; it hurt, but he had the urge to wrap himself around that hurt until it killed him. “He said that, did he?” he managed to sort of choke out, trying to sound lackadaisical and failing miserably. 

“Verbatim. I have a photographic memory, remember?” Q chirped proudly, then darted across to the wall before looking back again. “I still can’t get over this bloody wall on my own. Help me?”

“Of course,” James murmured. It took a bit to get his feet moving again, and even when he did, that sweet pain remained in his chest. He didn’t want it to ever go away. 

~^~

Getting over the wall was a bit more difficult than anticipated, because not only was James responsible for getting a boffin over the wall, but a pretty hefty backpack as well - and at this point, he began to realize how injured his hands were. Q actually made a little mewling noise and hesitated to even grab James’ hands, obviously not wanting to hurt him, and James had ended up smiling fondly and assuring Q that if they just grabbed each other’s wrists, nothing would be exacerbated. Q had looked dubious, but at that point, they started to actively hear some of the chaos from inside St. Joseph’s, which was as good a reason as any to get a move on. Part of James wished that he could be a fly on the wall inside right now, because clearly Alec was starting up a real party. 

The backpack, Q, and James all made it over the wall without any additional injuries, although Q just about ended on his arse again. Clearly, learning more about his background had not likewise led to any new athletic discoveries. James was itching to know now what Q had learned, but kept focused, telling himself that he couldn’t ruin this opportunity that Q (and Alec) had made for them. James hadn’t trusted other people in a long, long time, but right now he was willing to one-hundred-percent throw himself behind this plan, no questions asked, so once Q regained his balance, James merely asked, “What direction do you need me to aim us towards?” Behind him, the world was a mass of fog, but James only had eyes for the little boffin in front of him. James was determined to take Q through that fog and right to the ocean’s edge if it was asked of him. 

Brushing himself off from his ungainly landing, Q straightened his clothing (multiple layered things, James realized with approval; hopefully the backpack included more clothes for James), shook his hair back from his forehead (it fell right forward again, like a Shetland pony), and then gave some of the most explicit geographical directions that James had ever heard. Apparently, Q’s research hadn’t turned up much about who had given him a head injury, but it had somehow led him back to a little house in Cotswold.

~^~

The fog was as it often was in the mornings: thick as potato soup. Thankfully, James had actually gone out in the mornings quite often, loving the close, mysterious feel of it all. He also knew, logically, that this would make it very hard for anyone to track them, even on the off-chance that anyone started looking for them in the right direction. Q and Alec really had set up a good plan: eventually, someone would start looking for Q, but it would be ages before they realized that no one was actually in solitary, and even when this was realized, would anyone look for them out on the moors? Unlikely. No one but Q and Alec even knew that James had traipsed around out there before.

Still, they moved quietly for the first half-hour. Q and Alec had indeed thought to pack warmer clothes for Bond, so after a stretch of walking they stopped and James added on some pullovers of Alec’s over his own shirt. Q wanted to see to James’ hands, but James said that they should just keep moving - later, when they were further from civilization, they could work on cleaning the blood off. Because Q looked so huffy and upset, though, the blond-haired boy eventually acquiesced to let Q tear up the hem of another shirt and wrap the pieces all around James’ shredded knuckles. As Q did this, he murmured quietly, eyes down on his work, “You were punching the door, weren’t you? I saw Vesper before Alec went after her - you didn’t punch _her_ to get like this.”

Sighing, all that James could do was shrug. “I wanted out,” he said simply. ‘_I wanted to get to you. I thought I’d left you alone and in danger_.’ Instead of saying those truths, he added lamely, “Maybe I am claustrophobic.”

“Liar,” Q replied, but he sounded fond. Nothing more was said, and James went back to navigating his way between landmarks, Q trooping along behind him. 

They were going to exit the moors to the northwest, near a town with a train station - a different train station, Q said, than the one he’d been found on. When James had asked why they weren’t heading back there to investigate, Q had gone very still, and his voice was small when he replied, “I don’t need to see that place. I think I know enough.” Q tried to brush it off, but James read between the lines and understood: sometimes, the chance of recovering clues wasn’t worth the likelihood of remembering pure trauma. Q assured James that the incident hadn’t occurred at that station anyway, but rather at whatever place Q had gotten on the train. James didn’t ask if they’d be avoiding that location, too. Q would give our information when he was ready.

It wasn’t until the mist started fading that Q started getting chattier. By then, they were truly ages away from St. Joseph’s and civilization, but despite this fact, Q seemed relaxed and happy - and James could understand that. Despite the fact that he and Q were basically absconding into the wilds, Bond felt safer and freer than he could remember feeling. Sure, if they were ever caught, he’d probably get charged with kidnapping the younger boy or something, but James really didn’t care at this point. It was all worth it to be out here, away from St. Joseph’s, hearing Q talking about Alec’s incandescent rage at the description of Vesper getting James caught. The night had been one of the most horrible ones in James’ memory… but the morning, now, was one of the best. He could even ignore the continued throbbing in his hands, because that had been worth it.

Of course, the horrible events following their little break-in did eventually come back to bite them, but only in small ways: both James and Q had been up all night and hadn’t had breakfast. Q started flagging first, his chatter dying down again and his steps getting less coordinated as fatigue caught up with him. James was feeling it, too, although he had a bit more natural stamina than Q. Still, James was immediately thinking ahead to where they could stop, eventually finding a little spring he knew - they would soon reach the edges of his knowledge on the moors, but he’d explored this far at least once before. Q’s knowledge of the area was almost geographical, as if he’d swallowed a map, and that combined with James’ applicable knowledge kept them moving. 

Once they stopped, the ground soft and spongy beneath them with moss and the natural indentation of the earth around the spring providing cover from the natural wind that had picked up, Q immediately began digging through the backpack in earnest. Q and Alec had had the foresight to pack bottled water, and since Q insisted that the spring - no matter how clean looking - undoubtedly had bacteria, James’ knuckles were going to get cleaned with bottled water. James tried to protest that it wasn’t that big of a deal, but Q was adamant, and after a moment the older boy began to truly realize how much this bothered Q. Unused to people caring so much, James shut up after that, and just did what Q told him, even as the old bandages were removed, the wounds sluiced clean of dried blood, and a small first-aid kit dragged out for further disinfecting. Q was not particularly skilled with bandages, but he was determined and meticulous, and James had wrapped his own knuckles up often enough to be helpful. 

Frowning in concentration, Q muttered as he wrapped gauze carefully around one of James’ fingers to keep the bandage from slipping, “I don’t think I did this much - you know, before.” More frowning. “I don’t think my brothers are fighters.” 

“Probably for the best. Fighters tend to be nothing but trouble.”

Q finished by tucking the tail end of the gauze beneath a previous layer. It was actually rather nice work, overall. Moving on to the other hand, Q said sagely, “You’re a lot more than trouble.”

James wasn’t sure whether that was a compliment or not. If he was more than trouble, what was the ‘more’? 

The backpack also contained a small metal pot, no doubt stolen from Alec’s pantry. Q agreed that he’d drink spring-water if it was boiled first, and James chuckled (he’d drank a lot of water straight from this spring, but Q probably had a softer constitution) but set to work starting a little fire. Q wanted to help with that, but it quickly became apparent that Q’s genius didn’t extend to fire-starting. Before anyone got burnt, James asked Q if they had any twine or cord. While Q was thus distracted, searching through the backpack, James finished his own task without anything important getting set on fire. When Q found what he was looking for, James just told him to put it back - it was good to know that he had something for making snares later, if needed, but right now they should probably just eat the snacks Q and Alec and packed, and then catch a nap or two. Already looking pretty fatigued, Q accepted that plan of action readily, but still stayed doggedly awake until both of them had had an energy bar and the water bottles had been refilled with clean, pre-boiled water. 

Only then did James truly realize how tired he himself was. He tried to plan the path ahead while Q dragged blankets out of the backpack, but his eyelids kept drooping. What he knew for sure, fortunately, was that they were already far enough away that no one would track them here. It felt… strange… wonderful… relieving… to realize that he’d effectively escaped St. Joseph’s Home, probably for the last time. There was no way James was going back.

The sun was weak and watery, but at least the temperature was mild, and James barely needed the simple blanket Q handed his way. “When we wake up, we’ll keep moving - and get you to the train and home,” James promised, even as he rolled over onto his side and felt sleep start to sink in. Q made a noise that sounded like agreement, but then there was considerable rustling. Before James could roll over and see what was going on, the rustling had shuffled up behind him, and then he both heard and felt Q plop down there. A beat later, and the smaller boy was snuggled up against James' back, letting out a little sigh and relaxing only then. 

Feeling that pain in his heart again - but this time expanding, hurting less, growing into something more honey-warm than sun-bright-burning - James held very still for a few breaths, just soaking in the uncomplicated camaraderie. James didn’t get near anybody, or at least hadn’t since he was a pre-teen. But it wasn’t until now that James realized how rarely people had even _tried_ to get near to _him_. Alec had - and now Alec had helped James get free. Q had - and now Q was holding James’ entire heart in his hands, and nothing had ever felt safer.

Carefully, James rolled over, and without any hesitation for once, he stretched an arm over Q and pulled him in close. “Thanks, Q,” he murmured softly against a soft tangle of dark hair, then flipped the edge of his blanket over both of them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DID I NOT PROMISE YOU FLUFFIES???? \\(OuO)/


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James and Q make the final trek across the moors, and towards Q's home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is tooth-rottingly sweet. Like, you're about to read unadulterated cuddlefluff. I did had some angst at the end of the chapter, though, sort of like adding salt to caramel, just so no one dies of a sugar overdose. Hopefully I struck a good balance, because then I end on more sweet again...

For the first time in longer than he cared to remember, James awoke slowly, blinking against the daylight that he previously been blocked by his eyelids. He wasn’t sure what had woken him, but he felt comfortable, and for once there weren’t anxious little warning bells going off in the back of his skull - telling him to be careful, that any place could be dangerous. When his eyes came into focus, he saw soft moss and short grass in front of his vision, and began to belatedly feel something gently tugging and nudging at his fingertips. Growing slowly more alert but still feeling calm and lazy instead of anxious, James turned to look down, his gaze immediately greeted by a corona of dark hair. Q. The kid was still there, head pillowed on James’ right bicep, and he appeared to be testing out whether James’ fingers still worked. If James angled his head a bit more, he could see that Q was lightly brushing the edges of the bandages, too.

Despite the fact that James had barely moved and hadn’t said anything, Q started speaking unprompted, “You thought something bad had happened to me, didn’t you?” His voice was hushed and sober, like he was afraid the words would scare away something skittish. Something important. When James cleared his throat and tried to come up with a decent answer to that, he felt his fingertips captured in Q’s tight grip. 

Leaving his hands captive, James replied in a sleep-roughened voice, “You _do_ attract trouble.” 

“So you decided to try and beat your way through a door?”

“I guess so,” was the only answer James could give, because his brain was still asleep enough that he didn’t think he could weave a good lie - or, at least, a lie believable enough to make it past Q. The kid was just too keen. They continued to lie in silence for a while after that, Q still in the lee of James’ body, until the smaller kid finally relaxed his hold on James’ fingers. James didn’t try to move them away.

“Don’t do anything that stupid ever again,” Q said a moment later. His tone was surprisingly harsh, enough to get James’ eyebrows to rise up into his hairline. When Bond didn’t immediately reply, Q struggled around until his front was to James instead of his back, green eyes behind thick spectacles glaring quite ferociously from barely a hand-width away. “I’m smart and resourceful, and just because you’ve lost sight of me doesn’t mean you have to go ballistic and… and…!” Q’s words had started out almost vicious, but at the end of the sentence he glanced back behind him, towards James’ battered hands, and suddenly Q’s fierce little face was crumpling and his eyes were getting red and watery. His words petered off when it became obvious that he was precariously close to crying. James bundled the smaller boy close instinctively, and was rewarded by Q burrowing near of his own accord - and releasing an angry little sob against James’ neck.

“I know you are, Q. I know,” James assured, just soaking in the feeling of someone so close to him. “But you’re also… so damn small.”

“I’ll grow!”

James found himself chuckling. “I mean, I hope you do, but I’m not holding my breath.” Q muttered something about James being insufferable and a martyr and probably some other things, but when James pressed his face against the side of Q’s head and just exhaled a calm sigh into soft hair, Q quieted as if by magic. It made James feel strangely powerful, in a way that using raw strength never had. Perhaps something about that realization prompted James to murmur, almost against his own will, “I’m sorry, Q. But you scared me.”

James felt as if those two sentences had peeled his very skin back, and he nearly wriggled away just on reflex - his soft underbelly was showing, and he couldn’t stand it. Q responded by twining his scrawny little arms behind James’ neck, however, and holding on tighter. Even as James sighed and gave up, however, he realized that Q hadn’t said anything. It was like a tiny olive branch: Q wasn’t letting go, but he wasn’t going to prod at James’ new vulnerable spots either. James didn’t think he could ever remember being more grateful.

Finally, after a long stretch of silence and stillness that started out awkward but relaxed back into something natural, Q pressed his face into James’ collarbone until the older boy winced at the poke of spectacles. “Be smarter next time,” Q snapped at him, sounding so posh and bossy that James immediately had to fight a smirk, “Smart will get you further than angry will.”

“How about I let you be the smart one and I’ll-?” James cut off his teasing when Q punched him lightly in the side. “Fine, fine. You win. Demanding little hairball.”

That, predictably, led to a scuffle. James could have won handily, but that wasn’t much fun, and James was finding that he was growing increasingly addicted to harmless little skirmishes with his pint-sized companion. James would fight men twice his size for money, but Q he’d play-fight for free. So after rolling around in the grass for a while, James letting Q bowl him over numerous times, the two ended up just lying side-by-side, panting. James realized that his face hurt, and a beat later realized that it was because he was grinning so broadly.

“You let me win, didn’t you?” Q puffed by his side.

Staring up at the sky, where the clouds had parted in places to let down slender shafts of light, James shrugged and replied lazily, “I mean, I’d actually call this a draw.”

Not to be outdone, Q immediately pushed himself up off the grass. James grunted as he found himself with a boffin sitting on his Solar Plexus, looking down at him sternly. Of course, that sternness was rather ruined by the stray twig sticking out of Q’s hair like the antler on a yearling deer. James couldn’t bring himself to push Q off, even when Q saw that his point was proven and just raised an imperious eyebrow (again: the effect was rather ruined by Q’s one faux antler). “You did let me win.” This time, it wasn’t a question. Q poked James in the chest, and only then did James bat at him halfheartedly. 

“Just a little bit.” A sentence that was just a little bit of a white lie. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you ‘It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game’?” Before now, James would have scoffed at such a phrase - winning by any means necessary was all that mattered - but now he found that he rather agreed with it. Pinning Q to the loam in five seconds wouldn’t really be very rewarding, after all. 

Q sat back a bit further, and James grunted a little as the smaller boy’s weight settled on his stomach. Instead of getting offended, however, Q merely rolled his eyes and then looked off into the distance. It was with that faraway look that James was learning to recognize, so the blond-haired boy lay silently, waiting to see if and what Q would remember. James technically wanted to get them moving again so that they could make some more progress before dark, but he liked being complacent like this. It was rare and wonderful. 

Eventually, still looking off into the distance and squinting at a beam of light that had pierced the clouds, Q murmured, “My family doesn’t wrestle like you do.”

“What do you mean?”

“If they ever play-fight with me, they don’t let me win,” Q said in a soft voice that made it hard to tell if this was something James was supposed to be heartbroken over or not. Regardless, he was, and found himself frowning. 

Before James could start questioning whether or not a family like that deserved Q, the bespectacled kid came back to himself, gaze snapping back to James even as a smile appeared. “You could teach them!” Q chirped. 

Caught off-guard, James just stared and blinked like a deer in the headlights. It was not his finest moment. Q started guffawing, and finally James recovered enough to shove Q off him in a squealing heap. This time, James did pin Q for a moment… but in the end, he couldn’t put effort into it for long. It was like restraining a baby bird - why would you do it? This time James ended up on his belly with Q pressing down between his shoulder-blades, leaning over to ask, “Did you let me win again?”

“Maybe I’m just taking it easy on my hands?”

Q made a considering humming noise, and apparently found that acceptable, because when he pushed down against James it was only to assist the smaller boy in standing up. “You’re probably lying, but that was a smart answer,” Q said loftily, “I approve.”

“Grand praise indeed,” James grumbled, but he was smiling as he, too, stood up and brushed himself off. “Since you’re the smart one, are we ready to go yet?”

“I imagine we could get moving,” Q allowed in the same arch tone, beginning to fold up blankets and put things back in the backpack, “So long as you don’t call me a hairball again.”

James’ face was hurting again from smiling. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Q.”

~^~

This time as they walked, Q began to open up more about what he’d actually learned in his rapid researching. Before now, James and Q had mostly been focusing on the more physical aspects of the last few hours - Vesper’s involvement, Alec’s grand entrance, Q’s plan, James’ escape. Now, though, with St. Joseph’s falling farther and farther away behind them, those things felt less tangible. In fact, the only evidence of their past adventures was on James’ knuckles, and neither boy really wanted to talk about the injuries now. 

To say that Q was bubbling over with information would have been incorrect. If anything, he was rather cagy - tentative. At first, James wondered if this was a sign that Q was unsure of his findings, but as Q kept talking in circles, touching on bits of data only to veer away again, James realized that it was something else. Q was scared. Excited, but scared. Scared that he’d found out something true at long last, but not having any means to prove it for sure until they reached their destination.

Finally, James couldn’t stop himself from just interrupting and asking, “Did you find out what your name is?”

There was silence. James didn’t retract his question, though, and eventually Q straightened up a little and stopped chewing on his lower lip, instead stating firmly, “My name is Q.” James didn’t push any further after that. 

Q spoke much more directly about what had happened to him. While he seemed hesitant about speaking his identity out loud, he was more than eager to divulge his suspicions about how this had all happened. He was sure that he’d been mugged - “A random but unfortunate occurrence. I must have been dressed like I had money.” - and seemed to have figured out in what station it had happened. From there, he’d also deduced more and more about where he’d come from. James quickly became lost as to how Q had deduced all of this, but he trusted Q’s brains, and the kid seemed very certain about his findings. However, it wasn’t until they stopped for the day (settling down with a little fire that James started and granola bars that Q and Alec had packed) that Q finally said, “I think I know my last name.” He spoke so quietly that it was like he was hoping that the deepening gloom would overshadow his words, or the hungry crackling of the fire would gobble it up. It felt like how James had spoken earlier today, when he’d admitted that he’d been scared out of his mind by the thought of Q being hurt. 

James was watching the moors beyond the fire. He’d learned somewhere that you didn’t want to stare right into the light - it killed your nightsight. But now he turned to look at the boy sitting huddled next to him, knees drawn up and looking even smaller than usual. “Do you want to tell me?” he decided to ask. When Q just continued to stare into the fire, looking troubled, and wrapped his arms more tightly around his knees, James went on firmly, “Because I don’t need to know. No matter what, you’re Q to me.”

Firelight flashed like twin suns off Q’s lenses as he turned, briefly making his gaze unreadable - but when his head was fully turned, he was looking at James as if somehow the older boy had revealed some great epiphany. Q looked shocked, happy, and… he also looked like was about to cry again. Dammit. If James made Q cry one more time, then he was surely going to hell…

“Well, I mean, that’s who you’ve always been to me-” James tried to backtrack. He raised a hand to scratch at the back of his neck, feeling awkward and like he now needed to look anywhere but at Q. 

Before James could say anything more, Q was flying in his direction. It was so unexpected that James was bowled right over, and only after he’d hit the plush grass did he realize that he was being given a hug. Q made a happy little humming noise up next to his ear, and James suddenly realized that Q really could win fights without James letting him - he just had to use tactics like this. Totally disarmed and with no hope (or even thought) of fighting back, James lay there for a moment before tentatively returning the hug. 

“Thanks.” Q’s voice was muffled by the collar of James’ jacket. “I know that I was someone before this, but I don’t want to become someone different. For you. For you, I want to stay just Q.”

~^~

If asked, James would strenuously deny that he either needed or enjoyed cuddles, but damn if Q wasn’t the cuddliest thing. In both of their defence, the night brought with it a chill, and while their coats and blankets would surely have kept them a healthy temperature, there was no good reason why they couldn’t share body heat, too. Q had no embarrassment to speak of when it came to snuggling right up to his blue-eyed companion, and James… well, James had long since realized that he couldn’t say no to Q. So it was perhaps inevitable that they spent the night on the moors in much the same way that they’d spent the majority of nights when Q was at St. Joseph’s, under the same blankets with Q pretending to be a lizard and James pretending to be a very friendly heat-lamp. The only real surprise happened when James woke up (before Q, predictably, because Q was still not a morning person) and realized just how much he’d tangled himself around the smaller boy. Maybe Q’s cuddliness was contagious… James loosened his grip and retracted his limbs carefully, moving away to start up a fire and find some breakfast so that he didn’t have to think about whether he himself, perhaps, were touch-starved and only now realizing it. 

Bloody hell, Alec was going to have a field day if he ever heard about any of this.

Q protested the idea of ‘mornings’ in general, but perked up very fast when James said something about them reaching the train station today - and thus travelling to their final destination, Q’s home. James didn’t know all of the moors perfectly, but between his applied knowledge and the map in Q’s photographic memory, it was clear that they’d reach civilization soon. It was also clear that St. Joseph’s didn’t have a single idea where the two of them were, because no one could have predicted that two youths would run off into the wilds instead of trying to disappear into the nice, nearby town. Honesty, James hoped that sometime soon he could give Alec a call, and ask just what had happened after everything had gone down - how much at St. Joseph’s Home panicked at losing two kids? Where had they looked? How soon had they given up? James imagined that they’d given up on him far sooner than Q, but that was no surprise. Cute little things were easier to worry about. 

Q was still worried about James’ hands, though, so maybe less-cute, less-little things could earn some attention from time to time, too.

All in all, it was a good morning. The breeze was brisk but not too cold; they ate nearly all of the remaining food, but knew that they would be able to get more soon with the bit of money Alec had given Q to put in the backpack; Q was chatty and excited, and coming closer and closer to talking about himself, even if he kept putting question marks at the end of his sentences, to indicate that he didn’t really remember much more yet. James couldn’t imagine how bewildering that must be, for Q to be such a good investigator and learn so much about himself, but not be able to connect that knowledge with actual memories. When they saw signs of the train station in the distance, however, the moors becoming farmland and then a little city beyond it, James felt his own anxiety rising. Out here on the moors, away from people, everything was simple. Once they left it, however… well, it wouldn’t be just him and Q anymore, and outside of Q, James only really had one other human being that he liked, and that was Alec. 

Part of James considered turning back, staying outdoors like some wild creature too handshy to come inside. 

But then he realized that that would mean leaving Q alone for the train ride and then the rest of the trip to Q’s hopefully-home, and considering how trouble-prone the kid was, James just couldn’t do it. “Come on,” James said, because Q had frozen, too, as if the prospect of leaving the moors also scared him a bit. So James went on as boisterously as possible, taking the first forward strides, “Before owls come and carry you away.”

That had Q’s attention. “Wha-?” James didn’t have to look back to tell that he was being stared at in bewilderment. “Owls won’t do that!”

“Of course they would. They carry away baby birds all the time.”

“I’m not-! Goddammit, Bond,” Q huffed, and then there was the sound of him getting his feet in motion and catching up with James. The older boy kept ahead just long enough to hide a shit-eating grin. He also weathered a punch to his arm from one of Q’s bony little fists, but it was worth it. Q kept muttering about how he wasn’t a baby bird, or a hairball, or any of the other things James kept nicknaming him, all the way to the train station on the edge of this new town.

Getting a ticket for two boys without any kind of identification was a bit tricky, but thankfully James had some useful skills here, too. He’d become a fantastic liar since being put into foster care. Of course, once people realized that he was a good liar, everything went rather tits up, but it worked for the short time it took to get both himself and Q onto the train Q specified - although once they got into a train car and took their seats, Q was staring at James unblinkingly with what was either horror or awe. For the first time, James realized that Q hadn’t really seen this particular skillset put to use.

Instead of belabouring James for lying like a dog, however, Q merely said after a moment more of wide-eyed staring, “I’ve never even heard you use that accent before. How many do you know?”

Startled because this was not the direction James had expected this talk to go, James sat and frowned and actually forgot what accent he’d been mimicking fifteen minutes ago. It wasn’t until Q truly began pestering him, demanding to know positively everything about James’ accent-switching as if he’d been waiting his entire life to learn about this, that the older boy finally relaxed and realized he wasn’t in trouble. The only trouble was that Q’s curiosity was insatiable, and the train ride wasn’t going to be long enough for James to explain even a fraction of how he’d become a mimic. James honestly wasn’t sure how he did it, only that he could, and he did, and that it was a useful skill when you were constantly being bounced from home to home and mingling with different people who expected different things from you. Q soaked up every tidbit like a sponge, and it became a rather marvellous, accidental distraction for them both, right up until their stop came. 

As they grabbed their single backpack and stood up to leave, Q fell silent again. Once they disembarked at the station, James actually had to give him a little nudge and ask, “Where to now, Q?” 

Q gave him an address, and enough detail for James to know that they’d need to call a cab. However, it was Q’s final sentence that was most important: “It’s… It’s where the Holmes family lives.”

“That’s bril,” James slipped into an accent just to distract Q again. He got a watery little smile for his troubles, and that was more than enough. Keeping the accent on for the fun of it, James led Q away from the train station and set about being useful again, hailing them a cab and keeping track of how much money they owed Alec as they continued to pay from his stash. The cab driver had an accent not far off from James’, and it was easy for the blue-eyed boy to edit his wording just a bit, rolling the vowels around in his mouth a bit, and that was all it took to become instant (albeit temporary) friends with the driver. Q was staring at him again, but this time it made James reflexively smug and proud of himself rather than uncomfortable. 

“You are _very _friendly with strangers,” Q observed after they got out. They were a few blocks away from the designated address, because Q had insisted. James hadn’t argued or asked why. 

“Strangers are easier,” James said, slowly dropping the rougher accent in favour of the posher one that Q favoured… and that his parents had had, “They don’t know me. So I can be anyone and they’ll just accept it.”

“Hmm,” Q pondered that, kicking at a random rock on the sidewalk as the cab pulled away. James gave a wave. “That explains a lot.”

James turned from eyeing the houses around them (this really was a very upper-crust part of the neighbourhood, and it was making him feel out-of-place even though he’d been born into a well-off family himself) to frowning at Q. “What?”

“Those people don’t know you,” Q said as if this were all very simple, “so they like who you become. I don’t know who _I am, _soooo…” Q trailed off a moment, then decided that the rock had been kicked enough and turned back to James, took a deep breath, and said very seriously, “So I suppose that explains why I always like you, no matter what.”

James could only stare for a long moment. He was aware of someone’s dog barking somewhere down the street; somewhere else, the shrill cry of a fussy baby. He was very glad no one was nearby to see his tiny internal meltdown. “Fuck, Q,” he finally wheezed, “you can’t just go saying things like that.”

“And why not?” Q frowned at him quite thunderously. “I’m not lying.”

“I know…” And that was exactly the problem. Q was going to kill him with truthful sincerity one of these days, probably sooner rather than later. James, who wrapped himself up in lies on the regular, was in no way inoculated against the candidness that Q kept hitting him with. No, not hitting him - that denoted violence, and James could take violence. Q was wrapping him up in a warm fluffy blanket of blatant compassion while simultaneously coaxing James to drink a warm, honeyed mug-full of the stuff. It was as wonderful as it was terrifying, and no defence that James had ever learned worked against it. Snappy comebacks helped a little bit, so James swallowed a few times and finally found a reply, “How do you explain Alec then? He doesn’t have amnesia as an excuse.”

That actually stumped Q for a second, and it was adorable because Q wrinkled his nose while he thought that one out. “Trying to explain Alec hurts my brain,” he finally admitted. 

James couldn’t help but choke out a little laugh at that, because he sometimes felt the same. Reaching out a hand to ruffle Q’s hair in a move Trevelyan would have approved of, James coaxed, “Come on. I’m starting to think you’re just stalling now - we have to get you home, remember?”

“Home,” Q echoed softly, before finally giving in and turning to lead the way down the street, towards the mysterious Holmes residence. 

~^~

The Holmes house sat behind an actual picket fence, and somehow managed to be fairly sizeable while still looking quaint. There were no toys on the manicured, minute front lawn, but Q didn’t really seem like the leaving-toys-lying-around sort of kid, and perhaps his brothers had already grown out of most toys - Q had never really narrowed down what age-group his barely-remembered brothers were. For a long time, Q just stood on the outside of the decorative gate and stared at the house beyond, drinking it in with quick eyes and a troubled frown. 

James stood patiently next to him, resisting the by-now-typical urge to respond to Q’s unease with protectiveness. There was nothing to protect Q from here; just the possibility of his own past. “Does any of this ring a bell?” the older boy asked carefully. 

“I… Maybe?” Q sounded so terribly uncertain, and hunched his shoulders up beneath his jacket. James wasn’t sure where Q had even gotten the coat; unless Alec had dug through some really old clothes, nothing should have even remotely fit Q’s slim frame. 

Deciding to try something, James slid the backpack off his shoulders, letting it sit on the ground while he turned Q away from the house and leaned down to look into Q’s bemused eyes. “Okay, then tell me if there’s a dog in your backyard?”

“We don’t have a backyard.”

James flashed a smile. “Seeing as we haven’t circled around behind the house yet to determine that, it seems like you either remembered something, or else you deductive reasoning skills are scarier than I thought,” he observed, and watched as Q’s eyes lit up with excitement. Before Q could discover more things that he didn’t know he knew, both youths were startled by the sound of a door opening. 

James straightened and Q spun around, and the two of them found themselves looking at an older gentleman dressed in a cardigan and slacks far too fancy for any outdoor ventures, and hair already gone almost entirely white. The man and Q stared at one another for the span of three rapid heartbeats, and then the older gentleman clutched the doorframe a bit harder than before, and his chin gave a bit of a wobble before he said, “Siger?”

Having no idea who or what a ‘Siger’ was, James just stood and blinked, but no one noticed him - clearly, he’d become invisible. Q’s response, though, was a bit heartbreaking, as the kid’s eyes went wide and bright with tears… and then he darted and hid behind James the moment the man from the cottage moved. 

“Q!” James hissed admonishingly, looking around under one arm even as he felt Q’s hands fist in the back of his jacket. Looking forward again, James saw that the man at the door looked a bit heartbroken himself, but also as white as if he’d seen a ghost. Thinking fast and realizing that at least _one of them_ needed to do something, James gave his throat a clear and managed to take a step forward despite the boffin-shaped limpet attached to him. Pushing the gate open hesitantly, James called out in his best polite voice, “Um… are you? Are you, by chance, Mr. Holmes?” 

Clearly flustered, the older man’s eyes darted between James while also trying to look around him, to where Q was still hiding. “Yes. Yes, I am,” the gentleman belatedly said, giving a rapid nod. 

James tried to coax Q out into view. “Good. I - I mean, we - came to see you,” he tried to keep the conversation going, internally swearing. If he’d known that he was going to be playing the liaison in this reunion, James would have just stayed on the sidewalk and unceremoniously boosted Q up over the fence. This was going in a far more awkward direction than expected. When the old man said that name, Siger, again and once more Q didn’t seem to know what to do with himself, James just growled and twisted his entire upper body until he could hook an arm behind the smaller boy’s neck. He managed to haul him forward a bit. “Sorry,” James mumbled, “He hit his head, you see, and doesn’t quite remember everything.” Hoping that this would at least explain some of the situation, James used his free hand to push Q’s mop of hair back, revealing the healing pinkness of the scar at his temple. The man at the door, Mr. Holmes, presumably Q’s father, gasped and raised a hand to his mouth.

Q stayed glued to James’ side, shaking like a leaf. He wasn’t saying anything, however, and Mr. Holmes seemed likewise frozen and mute. James was just about ready to pick Q up, walk away, and try this again after everyone had regained some sense. 

But then the door behind Mr. Holmes opened further, and suddenly the head of another boy popped into view. “Father, why did you say-?” the other boy, who looked perhaps somewhere between Q’s and James’ age, stopped talking as his eyes alit on the two interlopers in his yard. Or, rather, when he set eyes on Q beneath James’ arm. And damn if this new boy wasn’t a spitting image of Q: no glasses, but his hair was just as dark and wild, a tousled mop above wide-set hazel eyes. He was gangly as hell, but if this was one of Q’s brothers, then it looked like Q had the genetic potential to grow a bit taller at least, although certainly not stronger. This other boy looked like a scarecrow, one that was currently gaping a bit. However, it was what he said that finally put everything together: “Q?” And then, voice rising and head turning back, “Mother! Mycroft!” 

“Mycroft?” Q breathed, even as James watched the other boy - Q’s other brother, as yet unnamed? - fixate on where James’ hand still held Q’s hair back from his scar. Something incandescently intelligent flashed in those hazel eyes, an understanding so sudden and obvious that it was like a snap of someone’s fingers, a silent “Eureka!” Even if this boy and Q weren’t spitting images of each other, James would have seen the family resemblance in that look of brilliant genius. 

But still no one was rushing forward to close the gap between one another, a fact that frustrated James to no end. How could these people see Q and not want to gather him up and never let him go? Too exasperated for words, James finally just changed up his grip on Q, ignoring the little yip of surprise as he gave him a shove forward. Then another shove, when Q still didn’t seem to get the idea. Q finally seemed to realize that he had working legs at about the same time that a wispy-haired, bright-eyed woman appeared at the door alongside a rounder-faced boy that seemed perhaps a few years James’ senior - and now everybody’s eyes were wide with disbelief. 

“Hello,” Q said, very tremulously but with a flicker of hope upon each word, “I… I think that I’ve been misplaced for a while. It’s a long story.”

Right as James was starting to growl under his breath, “Hug him, you posh bastards,” the one brother that James didn’t have a name for yet took a deep breath and straightened suddenly. With an almost ludicrously aloof expression, this brother stepped past everyone else and took measured steps forward until he was almost on Q’s toes. It looked almost like an attempt at intimidation, and James didn’t realize that he was bristling until the brother’s eyes jumped sharply to Bond’s hands - which were curling into fists. Surprise and the barest flicker of alarm flashed through the brother’s eyes, cracking his previous mask and showing something more human underneath.

Before anyone could react (either to accept Q or to ask why he’d brought this angry stranger with him), Q suddenly yipped, “Sherlock!” 

James queried impulsively, “Isn’t that a girl’s name?” which immediately earned him a sharp look from the brother in question. Maybe Sherlock would have retorted something cutting, but Q chose then to break from his immobility. Sherlock was right there, after all, and a little leap put Q high enough to wrap his arms around his startled brother’s neck in a clinging hug. Sherlock was a tall kid, and Q’s toes barely touched the ground once he’d grabbed on. The truly amusing part, though, was that Sherlock reacted as if someone had plugged his fingers into a light socket, and James actually felt a bit of sympathy for the look of utter panic that suffused the brother’s face. Since James himself was still trying to get used to Q’s surprise-hugs, he couldn’t judge. 

It was at that point that the rest of the family on the porch poured forth. James took a step or two back and sighed in relief, glad that Q’s weird little family wasn’t entirely abnormal - and they did seem to recognize him, and love him. Sherlock still looked like the hug was a hostage situation, Mycroft didn’t seem to know how to initiate a hug to begin with, and Q’s parents both acted eerily like Alec’s (just as Q had predicted from his little snatches of memories), but it was… wholesome. Certainly not normal by any stretch, but then again, Q wasn’t normal and neither was James.

Just as James’ unconsciously retreating footsteps brought him to the gate (he bumped against it without even realizing that he’d been drifting away), Q’s bespectacled face popped into view. He was all but enshrouded in Holmeses now, but somehow had still noticed James backing up. “James!” he called. 

Everything paused, heads turning, and James felt abruptly like some wild thing caught in a hunter’s spotlight. Without Q by his side, he felt disarmed somehow - a strange sensation, since Q was about as weaponized as a marshmallow, and usually it was James acting as sword and shield for him. But at some point Q had come to symbolize normalcy and safety, and now… James felt a shiver quake harshly down his spine, and a painful twist in his chest, as he realized that now Q had other people to be brilliant and lovely for, people who had had Q long before James had. The world suddenly felt deeply unfair, that James should do something selfless and good for once in his fucking life, and in doing so give up the one good thing that he’d had since longer than he cared to remember. 

Unsure whether he was angry or lost or sad, James didn’t say anything in response to the eyes on him, but found his hands fisting again until his knuckles throbbed. He missed the way that the gangly brother, Sherlock, looked once again to his bandaged hands, but with a more thoughtful look this time. 

Somehow, despite his family having finally glomped onto him, Q managed to extricate himself, and slip past a few grabbing arms to trot out towards James. None of his family quite went so far as to follow, and James got that, he did. James was a stranger, a threatening entity. Nothing about him said “Please, approach!” In fact, James found himself even edging away from Q a bit, reaching back blindly with one hand for the gate’s latch - which had _snicked_ closed again when they’d entered. Seeing the motion, Q’s eyes grew troubled, his expression face morphing into a frown even as quick hazel eyes found James’ wary blue ones. 

‘_You’re a housepet, well-loved_,’ James wanted to say, but his rebel mouth wouldn’t move, ‘_I’m the alleycat with one ear half-missing that people don’t feed because they think it might bite_.’ From experience, James knew that fighters were easy to spot - nowadays, he needed to only look at a person to realize that this was someone who answered a lot of questions with their fists. When he looked in a mirror, he saw that in himself, too, and by the way the Holmes family was acting, they saw it in him clear enough themselves and were reacting accordingly. So when James did get his voice-box working, all he could say to Q’s questioning gaze was a stiff, “You’re home now. I take it you’re remembering things?” Because yeah, he needed one last assurance that this was the right place for Q - not just some random foster-home, but a forever-home that he’d just accidentally left for a while. 

“Yes,” Q said, still looking troubled. The next step forward that he took was more careful, as if he, too, had realized that he was approaching something a little bit wild. “This is my family. Do you want to know what I remember?”

James was feeling his eyes getting wet. What he really wanted to do was leave, before this damned shaking got worse, before this inexplicable pain got worse. But what he said was, “Yes,” because he always wanted to hear what Q had to say. 

Giving a little nod, Q eased another quiet step forward while his family watched silently in the background. “I remember getting into a fight with Mother, and being angry. I ran away to the train station because I was going to live with my aunt until I stopped being angry. It was stupid.”

“You’re never stupid, Q,” James found himself saying fondly, mouth quirking in a smile that felt harder to shape than before. 

Q’s mouth twitched upwards at the corners, too, but he continued with his story, “I got mugged. That’s how it happened.” Behind him, his mother was covering her mouth, and even the stubbornly-aloof Sherlock looked stunned and pale. “I was right - I had a posh-looking coat, and people assumed I had money. And you were right, too, that I attract trouble.” Q’s smile turned a bit wry at the end, but then his face grew earnest and serious again. “Do you want to know what else I remember?” He took another step forward, another step closer.

James was running out of space to retreat, and even though his hand had found the latch, it was like he couldn’t open it. Maybe his hand had grown stiff, the skin tight and swollen as it healed. Yes, that was it. He knew that he had to leave now, and that was the only logical explanation for why he couldn’t. He had no easy explanation, however, for why he responded so quickly with, “Yes.”

By this point, Q was nearly standing on his toes, much like Sherlock had been - and maybe before, Sherlock hadn’t been trying to intimidate Q. Maybe he’d just been getting close, and like James, his face didn’t know how to form the right expression when faced with Q. James found himself breathing a bit faster, like the air was thin, and he abruptly realized that for the first time… he was afraid of Q touching him. Because even though Q was the opposite of physically intimidating, it had become abundantly clear that he could get right past every defence that James had been putting up since his parents died. 

“I remember,” Q said softly, hands to himself but eyes still on James’, never breaking contact, “my first day in St. Joseph’s home, when nobody knew what to do with me. I remember someone giving me a dinner roll.” James twitched, not expecting this change in the conversation’s direction. Q went on steadily, though, even as his hand reached out a bit, “I remember being really scared that first night, and someone letting me bunk with them, even though we didn’t know each other well…”

And Q went on and on and on, laying out everything that they’d done together - only from Q’s points of view, James sounded like a saint. By the end of it, James was leaning his full weight back against the yard’s gate, but he hadn’t opened it because Q’s hand had ultimately landed on his sleeve, pulling James’ bandaged hand away from it. Q was gripping James’ fingers now, much like he had that morning on the moors, when everything had been simple and perfect. 

James’ lashes felt wet. Breathing felt hard. But maybe the hurt he was feeling was a bit of the good kind again, the kind he’d hold tight to even if it killed him. 

“I remember _you_,” Q finished, very softly. 

And then the little boy leaned up on tiptoe, giving himself enough height to just press his cheek against James’ jaw, a warm, familiar, trusting nuzzle. Without even realizing that he’d given his body any sort of command to move, James wrapped his free arm around Q’s back fiercely, tightly. Q made a happy sort of hum, as if he’d just been waiting for James to initiate the hug for once. No comment was made on the way James kept his other hand very still, fingers still wrapped in Q’s gentle grip. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrighty folks, one more chapter to go - an epilogue to wrap this all up ^_^ I hope that everyone enjoyed this salted-caramel of a chapter, with its overabundance of hugs!
> 
> Also, many thanks to the ever-lovely [ Roseforthethorns ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseforthethorns/pseuds/roseforthethorns), who helped with the playfighting scene ;)


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The epilogue - in which I finally switch POVs, and we get to see this ending from other watching eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to the fantastic [Roseforthethorns](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseforthethorns/pseuds/roseforthethorns) for her swift beta-reading of this chapter! Also, disclaimers: authors knows nothing of the Navy and such, so read gently on references to James and Alec's time in the military. Also, there's a bit of jumping between tenses in this chapter, because I zoom in on some flashbacks. I've tried to clean up the most jarring ones, so hopefully it won't hurt the reading experience too badly :)

Epilogue

~^~

“And that,” Sherlock sighed, expression long-suffering, “is the story of how there is now another idiot in my house.”

The youth next to him replied automatically, “You think everyone is an idiot, Sherlock.”

“Yes, but I didn’t need another one living with me, John!”

Watson couldn’t contain the little snort of laughter this time, but resisted the urge to laugh outright - Sherlock’s ego could be quite fragile and bruised easily. “At least your little brother is back. Is he remembering everything?” 

Already well aware of the fact that John would be going into the medical profession (even if John himself didn’t seem to see that pathway yet, blind as he was), Sherlock was quick to supply an answer, “Memory is an inexact science, but being in his usual environment for a week seems to have eroded the worst of Q’s amnesia. The doctors also claim that he will have no ill-effects.” This last bit Sherlock said with heavy skepticism; he was already certain that the doctors had missed something. Thinking about this, Sherlock added with a scowl, “I worry that some part of Q’s brain might still be damaged.”

The two boys were walking down by the park, and John paused next to a bench to cast Sherlock a transparently worried look. John’s face really was an open book. “What do you mean?”

“He keeps _hugging people_.”

This time, John broke out into guffaws of laughter, and it took a good minute or two of Sherlock frowning and protesting to get the shorter youth to stop. Still not entirely serious, face warped in a smile, John collected himself enough to say, “Good god, Sherlock, and here I thought you were going to name some sort of terrible symptom.”

“It is terrible! He’s overly emotional.”

“I’m pretty sure that your baby brother has always been the least emotionally constipated one of your entire family. Maybe his time away made him realize that emotions aren’t going to kill him,” John opined, still grinning unhelpfully. 

Sherlock huffed and started strutting off again, making John trot to keep up. “Or maybe Bond is to blame for all this,” he seethed grumpily.

“I think I saw him when I came round to hang out with you,” John replied once he was back by Sherlock’s side. He kept up determinedly, not minding that he had to work a bit to keep up with Sherlock’s longer stride - after all, John had two working legs. Why not use them? “He didn’t look like an emotional fellow.”

“Oh, you should see him.” Sherlock rolled his eyes, always dramatic. “Did you know that he has my parents completely charmed? It’s an utter farce, though. He’s like…” Sherlock waved his hands, momentarily at a loss for words, which was what really had John paying attention - Sherlock always had words. Far too many of them, and often with far too many sharp edges. Eventually, though, Sherlock settled on a frustrated description of, “...Like one of those cats that purrs and rubs up against you when it wants to, but deep down just wants to scratch you!”

“You’ve never forgiven Moran’s cat for that one time, have you?”

“Moran’s cat was giving me every indication that it wanted its belly scratched. I was merely following social cues, like everyone tells me to.”

John decided not to mention that Sherlock was pants at following social cues, and this episode with the cat only drove home that point. Surprisingly, though, before John could come up with some sort of mollifying reply, Sherlock’s temper vacillated into something more amused. The glower became a bit of a smirk. “I suppose Q’s new shadow isn’t entirely irredeemable, though. He did drive Mycroft a little spare yesterday.”

Since John also couldn’t stand Mycroft most of the time, he perked up at this. “Do tell.”

“Well,” Sherlock puffed up, clearly realizing that he had an interested audience now and loving it, “Q was being weird again, and Bond was letting him.” Based on John’s sigh, more elaboration was needed, so Sherlock acquiesced to paint a clearer picture for his mentally deficient acquaintance, “Bond had been reading a book on the sofa, and Q had decided to take a nap on him, and for some reason James doesn’t see any problem with having almost an entire boy on his lap.”

“Oh,” John said, in a notably droll voice, “the horror.”

“Exactly!” Sherlock gave an excited nod that tossed his dark curls, forcing him to sweep them back from his forehead. He then continued to wave his hands about, “But thankfully I was just in the other room when Mycroft decided that he had to come out and ask Q something. It was immensely gratifying to watch Mycroft waltz up like the poncy prince he is, and have Q’s new guard dog just stare him down.” Sherlock dropped his hands, canting his head and grinning as he cast back in his memory, “I think Bond actually growled at him. Mycroft didn't know what to do, so he just slowly backed away again without waking Q up. Bond went back to his book.”

This whole time, John had been silently shaking with internalized laughter. He did pipe up, though, “Good to know Bond can read.” He was careful to keep the sarcasm hidden, and maybe it was a little bit fond. Sherlock was an insufferable prat, but he was John’s insufferable prat.

Sherlock gave his head a toss and declined archly, “Oh, I imagine he was just looking at the pictures.” 

However, for the rest of their walk, nothing bad was said of James Bond, because no matter how oafish he appeared, or how he might be affecting Q’s emotional status, he had brought the youngest Holmes back. And even Sherlock had the emotional aptitude to be deeply grateful for that.

~^~

Mycroft did not like this interloper in his house. This Bond character certainly had Mother and Father fooled, but Mycroft knew that this was no genteel soul that had come home attached to Siger - James Bond had _growled at him_, after all.

“Anthea, you would be surprised how stupid my parents are sometimes.” Mycroft gave his head a shake. He and Anthea were at the local coffee shop, but at _his _table, off in a perfectly lit corner. Mycroft always talked with the wait-staff to be sure that they left the table open for him at certain times on certain days. He was sure they listened to him. He was also sure that Anthea was listening, even as she sucked on a lollipop and scrolled through her phone. “They’re just too trusting, sadly. I’ll have to keep a close eye out, and be sure that Bond isn’t just here to con them out of our money.” He shook his head again, tutting. “Siger would give it to him in a heartbeat. My youngest brother is like a puppy, you know. He hasn’t yet mastered his emotions. I dare say even Sherlock has more self-control. A shame, really.”

Anthea acknowledged this by moving the lollipop to the other side of her mouth. 

“Did you know he prevented me from having a serious chat with my baby brother just yesterday?” Mycroft exclaimed, but without raising his voice. Raising one’s voice was uncouth and a sign that you were too uncivilized to discuss matters at a normal volume. Sherlock yelled all the time (loud violin screeching counted as yelling); Sherlock was uncivilized. “Bond had Siger’s head in his lap like my brother was some sort of kitten, and when I came up to have a word, that blue-eyed heathen had the nerve to growl at me.” Anthea tapped at something on her phone. Mycroft nodded in response, feeling vindicated. He finished the story, “Knowing that there could be no sensible discussion there, I wisely retreated. I’m beginning to notice some unhealthy codependency with those two.” Drumming the fingertips of one hand on one knee, Mycroft gave his head a third, resigned shake. “As a Holmes, Siger needs to learn that it is unwise to ever become attached to a single person.”

Without warning, Anthea snorted. When Mycroft whipped his head around to look at her, though, she wasn’t looking at him - merely smirking a little at her phone. She must have read something very funny.

~^~

It was Mr. Holmes who looked into St. Joseph’s Home. He did it the day after getting his boy settled, and the boy his boy had brought home settled with him. James Bond was a strange boy, but one with good manners, and Mr. Holmes had always been a good judge of such characters. Of course, after getting the entire story out of both Siger and James, it had seemed that the situation was quite disturbing indeed - so when Mrs. Holmes had delicately suggested, that first night, that some of the story had perhaps been sugarcoated, Mr. Holmes had made his way to the an old friend’s house. Boothroyd was a trustworthy man who also had good manners, but who also had a computer.

Together, Mr. Holmes and Mr. Boothroyd did a bit of ‘web browsing’ (what a strange phrase), and found out some truly unsettling things indeed. A call home revealed that, meanwhile, Mrs. Holmes (what a smart woman he’d married) had been making quite a lot of phonecalls, and together the three adults assembled a rather darker story than Siger and James had outlined. Those poor little chaps. Boothroyd had even found the recent police report, apparently all started by some family involved in the situation (the Trevelyans, yes, that was it) - they’d called in the police at some point after Siger and James had taken their leave. The police had found a little room with no windows and barely any space, and it had had blood smeared all over the inside of the door. It was causing quite a scandal, although no one was quite sure how the Trevelyans had known to send the police looking for that little room. 

After lots of internet searches (assisted by Mr. Boothroyd, who was very invested now, as he’d always loved Siger like a son himself) and phonecalls, Mrs. Holmes decided that this St. Joseph’s Home was a lamentable place that simply didn’t deserve to exist anymore. Mr. Holmes agreed and also decided that he rather liked this Trevelyan family - they even had a boy about James’ age. He’d have to invite them over sometime soon. Perhaps for tea. Or else he and Mrs. Holmes could go visit them, and maybe have a long talk about the people running St. Joseph’s home.

The boys could play while the parents talked.

When Mr. Holmes got his coat on to go home again, Mr. Boothroyd saw him out, asking some questions about James. He was politely curious about the older boy, and when Mr. Holmes got home, his wife made a few hints about James perhaps living with Mr. Boothroyd - after all, their own house was already full of boys, and Boothroyd’s was so sad and empty since the passing of his wife. And besides, Mr. Boothroyd lived just down the street, so there’d be no harm in frequent visits - since Siger seemed so adorably attached. 

~^~

Siger Q. Holmes was Boothroyd’s favorite of the Holmes boys. It wasn’t that Boothroyd disliked the other two… no, actually, he did. He disliked them. They weren’t his cup of tea, no matter how you honeyed it. So when Q had gone missing, it had hit Boothroyd hard, and he’d likewise been overjoyed when he’d heard that the boy had miraculously returned. 

And not long after, Boothroyd had gotten to meet the boy who had returned with Q.

It took a number of days, of course, before the Holmes family was willing to let their youngest child out of their sight, but after that, the next approved visiting location was the Boothroyd residence down the street. By then, it seemed that perhaps Q was getting a bit smothered by his family, because just Q turned up at Boothroyd’s door - but with a blond-haired boy in tow that reminded Boothroyd at first of Sherlock’s friend, John Watson, until he saw the shockingly pale blue eyes. Clearly an unforgettable sort of boy. Boothroyd let them both in happily, and introductions were made with minimal awkwardness. Honestly, all Boothroyd needed to know what that Q trusted this boy, James - after that, everything was immaterial. Mycroft had a penchant for manipulating people; Sherlock liked to hunt out their secrets; but Q was actually a decent judge of character on an emotional level, Boothroyd had decided. So if Q thought Bond was worthwhile, then Boothroyd did, too. 

The three of them quickly ended up in Boothroyd’s garage. His home was not large, but the garage space was, and even since the death of his wife, Boothroyd had honestly spent more time in the latter locations, tinkering with whatever came his way. He had an old car in the garage now, with more things wrong with it than right. Another reason that Boothroyd preferred the youngest Holmes to his more analytical older brothers was that of all the Holmes, only Q seemed to love tech like Boothroyd did - so when he came over, it was like having a minute, voraciously interested assistant. James was perhaps less voracious, but it was soon clear that he was no less interested, and the three of them had quite a fun evening. Sure, Q got so much engine grease on him that his clothes would probably give Mrs. Holmes a migraine - sure, Boothroyd suspected that James somehow knew how to hotwire a car - and sure, Boothroyd probably prattled on about his late wife too much, but no one complained in the four hours that they spent working on the car. One thing that Boothroyd noticed but didn’t comment on, however, was the fact that he didn’t see James smile until about the third hour, and even then it was a secret sort of smile, entirely caused by something Q had said. By the fourth hour, the smiles were becoming a bit more common, and Boothroyd sensed a relaxing in the older boy that reminded him of a cat settling down in a new home. 

Now it was hour five, and Boothroyd had called back to the Holmes place to reassure them that the boys were still at his place - he’d return them for supper. Said boys had played themselves out, and had both crashed on the dusty old sofa Boothroyd had stashed in the back of the garage, meaning to get rid of it for years. Despite the fact that James had been a bit reserved all evening, he was out cold now, one arm hanging off the side of the sofa - and despite the fact that Q was utterly messy, he was sprawled right on top of the other boy, ensuring now that they were both equally covered in grease. It all made Boothroyd smile, even as he felt a little twinge in his heart at the memory of how he and his wife had never had the kids they’d wanted. 

He shuffled back into the house (leaving the door to the garage open so he’d hear if anyone called for him), letting the boys get a well-deserved nap. He went to call the Holmes again, to ask if anyone had decided where James (whom he’d been told was an orphan, although why no one had adopted him Boothroyd couldn’t imagine) would be staying long-term.

~^~

The story after that was simple in some ways, complicated in others. 

The simple parts were the most wonderful and the most deserved, in Q’s opinion. In light of recent events, St. Joseph’s Home didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of staying in operation - at least, not with its current faculty, and certainly not with the Holmes family and the Trevelyans teaming up against it. Q was elated when his family got along with Alec’s… although Mother did tend to delicately complain about Mrs. Trevelyan’s tea behind her back. Still, it was worth it to get to see Alec regularly, who had gotten into some minor trouble for his part in all this, but had only been punished with community service. 

That first trip to visit Alec was also a bit tangled up with legal stuff, and there was where the ‘complicated’ side of things came in. Yes, St. Joseph’s Home was absolutely atrocious, but also Alec had attacked a young woman and started a fire (Q was quite shocked to hear that but James wasn’t), and James had run off with an underage boy in tow. Being the underage boy in question, Q was more than willing to testify to his willingness to follow James, but that still involved polite statements, apparently. It was all very inconvenient, and it made James anxious and tense in a way that apparently only Q could see. Well, Sherlock could probably see it, too, but he just wanted to be an arse about it, so Q spent the entire car-ride to the Trevelyan’s place trying to guard his best friend from his two brothers. They somehow arrived without a brawl breaking out. Perhaps there would have been a fight, but instead of reacting to Sherlock’s sly teasing and Mycroft’s snooty comments, James was quiet and withdrawn, looking out the window whenever they passed wild, open spaces. Q suddenly wanted to take James out onto the moors again - or at least wished he’d taken James to the little acre of park near their house before they’d left. 

By the time they parked on the Trevelyan’s street, Q was leaning hard against James’ shoulder as if he could soak up his silent, hidden distress like a sponge. He wasn’t sure how successful he was. 

Fortunately, soon afterwards they were getting out of the car and seeing a familiar face appearing from a familiar house - and Alec was more than willing to help Q brighten James’ day. 

It quickly became apparent that Mycroft and Sherlock were going to pay dearly for being smarmy ponces the entire ride here. Then again, even if they had been nice, chances were high that Alec would have made their lives hellish, because clearly Alec’s personality did not mesh with theirs in any way, shape, or form. It was like sticking two Persian housecats into a house with an Australian shepherd dog. Alec was tenacious, energetic, and didn’t really care if he dragged anyone else through the metaphorical mud with him. 

What followed was honestly scarily impressive. Sherlock and Mycroft immediately puffed up and postured a bit, the moment they saw Alec’s broad smile and no doubt realized that an element of chaos had entered their ordered, logical lives. Sherlock’s next move was to psychoanalyze a few things about Alec, just as soon as the parents had wandered to the next room, leaving the kiddies alone. The problem was… Alec didn’t care. Sure, Sherlock pulled stuff out of thin air that no one had any right knowing about a person (something that still shocked and unsettled Q from time to time), but Alec was ashamed of exactly zero things about himself, and just replied by saying, “Well spotted. Do you do parties?” Mycroft then stepped in to try and be intimidating, but even Q could see that that was failed from the start, because no amount of vague, threatening insinuations could stop Alec from grinning like he was about to eat Mycroft whole. By the time Mycroft and Sherlock backed down a bit, it was hard to tell if Alec liked Q’s older brothers or hated them, although it was clear that Sherlock and Mycroft were reevaluating James as the lesser of two evils. Q was sort of stunned and horrified, and had long-since slid down to sit against the wall, watching the proceedings as one watched a very slow but inevitable train-wreck. 

James had come up and somehow managed to stand over him, so that the youngest Holmes got to sit on James’ feet and lean back against his shins - one glance upwards, however, showed that James was smiling a bit for the first time all day. Upon seeing that look, and James’ increasingly relaxed posture, Q decided that Sherlock and Mycroft’s discomfort was for a good cause. 

It all ended with Mycroft declaring that he was going to rejoin “the adults!” and Sherlock wandering off to explore the house on is own, no doubt intent on occupying his mind with other people’s secrets. Only then did Alec turn and soften his smile to something less toothy. “Hey, Jamesy, Q.” Turning his attention downwards to Q as he walked up to them, the Trevelyan boy asked more pointedly, “Those are your older brothers, huh?” Still sitting a bit possessively on James’ feet, Q nodded. “They’re sort of arseholes. How did you end up so likable and adorable?”

The three retired with much laughing to Alec’s room, where they were all able to share tales of what had happened since they’d last parted - from Alec’s fight with Vesper and the ensuing fire he started to Q and James’ ultimately uneventful trek through the moors. Alec liked it when the story reached Q’s family reunion, and especially liked hearing about Boothroyd. Something surprised lit Alec’s green eyes when James started speaking of the older engineer, and Q thought he understood that look: Alec was surprised because James’ words were complimentary, and maybe even held a bit of genuine fondness in them. When Q met Alec’s gaze, the smaller boy smiled and nodded very slightly, and an understanding flowed between them. 

It would be not long after that day that Boothroyd would offer to let James stay at his place - more room than at the Holmes’ house, after all, and Boothroyd was honestly incapable of being as nosy as Sherlock and Mycroft. Eventually, staying over would evolve into adoption, even though James would protest that it wasn't necessary, that he was just about old enough to be on his own legally anyway. Boothroyd would insist that this didn’t have anything to do with legality, and he just wanted James in his family. The night Boothroyd declared this, James would go back to the Holmes for the night (Boothroyd said that they both deserved some space to think about this), sleeping in the guest bedroom. Q would sneak in after everyone else was asleep.

Unsurprisingly, he’d find James laying awake, still atop the blankets with one arm behind his head and the other with his fingers drumming restlessly on his trim stomach. The look he was casting at the ceiling was full of more uncertainty than he let the rest of the world see. Therefore, Q felt obliged to crawl up on the bed and sit next to him. 

“Nighttime is for sleeping,” Q felt the need to point out.

James snorted but didn’t stop staring into the middle distance. “I’m staying awake doing what Boothroyd told me to do: thinking about all of this.” He gave the hand on his stomach a vague little wave then let it drop again. To the casual observer, his body was lax, but Q could see the tension in it, the readiness to run for fight: the slightly flexed muscles, the closeness to one side of the bed, the way James still dressed in his day-clothes, minus only shoes and socks. 

Q nodded acceptingly and rustled around until he could get himself under the covers. Only once he was tucked beneath blankets and wedged up against James’ right shoulder did he comment, “That’s a wise thing to do.”

“And what if he thinks about it, too, and changes his mind?”

Thankfully, Q had been there when Boothroyd had stated his offer, so he was able to press his cheek against James’ near shoulder and reassure, “He promised he wouldn’t.”

James didn’t sleep that night, and neither did Q, but it turned out okay in the morning. James went back to Boothroyd’s the next day (with Q, always with Q) and said yes, and paperwork was signed that day, making James part of a family again. 

~^~

Much later, in a familiar art gallery…

~^~

It had been too long, but somehow Q still recognized James - even if it was the back of the man’s head, and even if it was in an incongruous place like the National Gallery, where Q would otherwise never have been able to imagine him. Shaking his head but fighting a little smile, Q circled the benches to sit down next to James. They both kept their eyes forward. They both pretended like this was just work, just MI6 business.

But instead of greeting James as 007 like he was supposed to, and professionally handing off the agent’s kit before heading back to Q-branch, the youngest Holmes boy found himself saying, “Did you really have to run off to the Navy just because I kissed you? If anyone knew you could be scared off so easily, I dare say it would ruin your reputation.”

Q kept staring forward, but next to him he heard a small noise that could have been a choke or a stifled chuckle. “I’d like to point out that Alec ran away with me - and you didn’t even kiss him,” the agent rejoined. It was so good to hear that voice again; it had settled onto an accent that was somewhere between old Boothroyd’s and the Holmes family and the Trevelyans. Only Q could probably pick up the many tiny ways in which the accent was so uniquely James’. “And even that Moran kid down the street. Don’t tell me you scared him off with a kiss, too?”

“Unlikely,” Q scoffed, and dared to lean his shoulder over, butting it briefly against Bond’s. He then dared to place on hand on the seat between them, trying to deny that he was quivering with anticipation, with uncertainty. 

James hummed as if truly appreciating that answer, although he kept up the facade of looking forward. To all the world, they were simply two colleagues discussing and appreciating a painting of an old warship. “You’re conveniently forgetting that I came back whenever I had shore leave,” James leaned just a bit closer to say. The quickest of glances showed Q that there were playful crows’-feet at the edges of the blue eye he could see; James’ profile revealed the tiniest glimpses of good humor to those who knew where to look for it. James still didn’t smile often or broadly, but Q knew where to look for his laughter even after all these years. Just as James added, “Rather often, if I recall,” the blond-haired agent also put his hand on the bench. Their smallest fingers overlapped, James’ over Q’s. 

Relaxing as if the tiny touch were a whole speech of assurances, Q chuffed a little laugh and admitted in a low undertone, “Oh, I _do _remember. Thoroughly.” He dared lift his pinky finger a little bit, so that it hooked over James’ from underneath. Bond’s hands were more scarred than before, but still utterly familiar.

Now Q could definitely hear the quiet laughter rumbling in James’ chest. “I do my best to be thorough with all my lovers,” he replied cheekily, bringing up all manner of inappropriate memories that had absolutely nothing to do with work. As Q felt his ears heating up, however, James shifted his hand so that it was suddenly covering all of Q’s - no hesitation, no shyness, just a warm squeeze of a calloused palm. When James spoke again it was at a murmur, no teasing to be found, “I do _more_ than my best just for you, though.” 

Ah, the fluttering in Q’s chest would never get old. He felt the blush pinking his cheeks further, and fought a very un-Quartermaster-like giggle as he kept staring forward and said, “If I turn my head, you’re going to kiss me in public, aren’t you?”

“Most likely.” James was definitely looking at him now, no longer pretending to inspect the painting. “Everyone tells me that I’ve become quite a shameless cad that way.”

Q snorted, “If they knew you like I do, they’d know that you have _always_ been a shameless cad.” The hand around Q’s gave another squeeze, and gave in quickly when Q wriggled his fingers, wanting to intertwine them instead. “I’m supposed to be giving you your kit, you know - swiftly and efficiently, so that we can both get back to work,” Q remindered, even as he felt a tantalizing warm brush of breath against his left cheek. 

“Well, if anyone wanted this to go efficiently, they should have sent Alec to see you instead of me.”

“Alec is about as efficient as a ferret in a box of packing peanuts.”

“That… is a very unexpected yet weirdly accurate metaphor.”

“I aim to surprise and please,” Q drawled, and was then caught by surprise by James’ free hand snaking up and catching his chin. God, but James had gotten quick since entering MI6. In an instant, Q’s mouth was melting into a kiss that he’d been wanting for over a month now - sometimes he missed the days when he and James had lived in the same little town, with such easy access to each other. In full view of anyone at the gallery, the two shared a brief yet unhurried kiss, a space of ten seconds in which they nonetheless managed to reacquaint themselves with old sensations. Thankfully, no one was walking through the room at the time. 

When they pulled back, James’ kept his hand on Q’s face, fingers lightly brushing Q’s jaw while blue eyes watched Q attentively. “I aim to surprise and please, too,” James belatedly confirmed, voice perhaps a bit more intimate than before, and a smile perhaps hidden at one corner of his mouth, “But only for people I know are worth it.”

Because Q of all people knew how short a list that was (some parts of James still hadn’t changed, specifically the parts of him that let people in close), the Quartermaster knew the depth of the compliment he was being given. It made his heart squeeze a bit in his chest, and he likewise squeezed the fingers still twined in his left hand. “Come on,” Q said, hushed and still not quite professional, “How about I give you your kit somewhere more private?”

“I thought you and I both had to get back to work.”

“Work can wait.” Q gave James a quick peck on the lips and then stood. “And you’re right - Alec can handle things.”

As James allowed himself to be pulled to his feet, he barely held back laughter, commenting, “That is most definitely _not _what I said. Alec handles things like kerosine handles a house fire.” 

“Another odd but fitting metaphor.”

“Anything to keep up with the wit of my Quartermaster.” James winked. Q still remembered when he’d gone from liking James as a friend to realize that he wanted to do more with him; he was pretty sure it had started with a wink like that. 

“Oh, you think you can keep up with me now, do you?” The fact that no one was within hearing range at the moment made Q daring, and he waggled his eyebrows to make the innuendo clear. 

“You’re a menace,” James chortled. 

“I’m a force of nature,” Q countered, purposefully acting a little bit like his brothers by tipping his head back archly, nose in the air. “There’s a difference.”

Surprisingly, James didn’t argue, and surprised Q again by turning their banter into something soft and intimate. They’d just entered a long, empty hallway, and although one of Q’s hands was occupied by the briefcase containing James’ mission supplies, James reeled him in close. One of Q’s hands still tangled in James’, and the agent’s other hand curled around Q’s back in a hug that brought back memories (although it was less desperate than before, more trusting that this intimacy would last), James looked at Q softly and agreed, “You’re definitely a storm, Q, a force to be reckoned with.” Voice going quieter, so that even Q had to strain to hear in the silence of the gallery hallway, James admitted, “I think all I ever wanted was to be the eye of that storm.” 

Q had always known, even when they were younger, that James was too wild, too sharp-edged, to ever be the apple of someone’s eye, the pretty song in their heart, the blithe spring in their step. So somehow, this was only kind of declaration that would have felt real - and, coincidentally, it was the kind of declaration that would survive the best in their shared lives at MI6. There would be storms ahead for sure. 

Q leaned in, as he once had, and pressed his cheek against James’ stubbled jaw, shivering as he felt and heard James’ surprised little exhale - this from a man trained not to be surprised, not to reveal anything. “You always were,” Q assured, “and I always want you to be.”

They just stood there like that for a long time, half-hugging, half just leaning into each other, and even though people walked by, everyone was smart enough not to say a word.

~^~

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we have it - the end :) I struggled and struggled with this ending, because it just didn't want to come from James' POV, but flowed much more easily when I realized that a few more voices wanted (needed) to be heard. I also loved the excuse to write in a bit of Mycroft and Sherlock hilarity (I bashed them a bit, I know, but I loves them). 
> 
> A million thanks to those comments who have been along for this entire ride - your comments really did fuel this story's progression, as did the steady, caring, understanding feedback for the person that this fic was written for: [AudreyInTheUniverse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AudreyInTheUniverse/works). Goodness knows I stalled out on this story many time, but she was always there to send me lovely little email-nudges that reminded me how much I loved writing this story.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is already about 80-90% finished, so expect regular updates! ^_^ I forget sometimes how much I love writing kid!fic <3

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Little ball of friendly fluff](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20837114) by [Yuurei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuurei/pseuds/Yuurei)
  * [Thanks Q](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21482479) by [Yuurei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuurei/pseuds/Yuurei)
  * [I remember you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21687580) by [Yuurei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuurei/pseuds/Yuurei)
  * [Did you really](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21734122) by [Yuurei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuurei/pseuds/Yuurei)


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